Maggie Helen
is a rare Zulu, with official number 161170, registered at Lerwick, Scotland. She was designed by John Shewan and built by Hay & Co Ltd. in 1904 at Hays Dock, Lerwick. Her hull was carvel built with larch planking, oak frames and a redwood deck fastened with iron nails. She has a pointed bow, a plumb straight stem and a Zulu stern. As a fishing vessel, she was converted to motor propulsion. In 1952 she was re-rigged and renamed LOKI as a yacht with Bermudan schooner rig, then further converted in 1960 to a motor cruiser. She cruised around Shetland and to Scandinavia every summer from 1953 to 1997. A restoration project was partly completed in 2007-‘09, with planking complete but requiring caulking – the vessel wasd abandoned as a hull only, with no deck or superstructure. In the summer of 2022, Maggie Helen was rebuilt at the Shetland Museum & Archives in Lerwick, in the very shed where she was originally built in 1904. The rebuild used mostly available and recycled materials and up to 15 volunteers worked for three months to bring her back to life. The project was led by Benoit Cayla (Rose of Argyll and Swallow), who comments that he became interested in the historic vessel because of her Zulu style hull. She has a raked stern for protecting the rudder, but a straight-stemmed lugger style bow. This provides more deck space in crowded ports and was a popular choice for herring boats in the late 1800s. At one point there were hundreds, but the style is quite rare now. She’s very much a head turner in any harbour as she is operated traditionally in every respect. Once relaunched, she’s ploughed the seas in Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Britany and over the channel sevaral times – engineless.