Gloup Voe: The Day the Voe Went Silent

Look at Gloup Voe now. Serene. Quiet. Almost insulting in its calm, given what happened here on 20 July 1881. My previous post covered the haaf fishing station at Fethaland, but the station at Gloup is something else entirely.

That Wednesday morning, the North Yell fleet put out into what the men called a “day atween wadders” — a brief lull between gales, the sea’s way of lying. They rowed their open sixareens forty miles into the Atlantic, because the fish were there and the rent was due. Then a hurricane-force depression came down from Iceland. No warning.¹“Gloup Disaster.” Seafood Shetland, 2026, https://www.seafoodshetland.co.uk/history/gloup-disaster

Here is the bitter part. Boats that ran for shore were swamped by the following sea. Boats that stayed at their lines, riding it out, largely survived. The ones who tried hardest to live died first.²Dixon, Magnus. “Haaf fishing in Shetland.” NorthLink Ferries, 2026, https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/shetland-blog/haaf-fishing-in-shetland/

That choice — if you can call it a choice — was not made in freedom. Under the “truck system”, merchant-lairds held the crofts over the men’s heads like a sword. Debt and the threat of eviction drove them forty miles offshore in open boats. When the storm had finished, 58 men were dead. Thirty-four widows. Eighty-five orphans. No welfare state.

The houses are ruins now. The families left when the sea took the men who paid the rent. The land simply emptied.³Nadin, Gill. “A Yomp in Yell and Historic Tragedy at Sea.” Go Shetland Tours, 21 Oct. 2019, https://www.goshetlandtours.com/post/a-yomp-in-yell-and-historic-tragedy-at-sea

• 1
  “Gloup Disaster.” Seafood Shetland, 2026, https://www.seafoodshetland.co.uk/history/gloup-disaster
• 2
  Dixon, Magnus. “Haaf fishing in Shetland.” NorthLink Ferries, 2026, https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/shetland-blog/haaf-fishing-in-shetland/
• 3
  Nadin, Gill. “A Yomp in Yell and Historic Tragedy at Sea.” Go Shetland Tours, 21 Oct. 2019, https://www.goshetlandtours.com/post/a-yomp-in-yell-and-historic-tragedy-at-sea