‘Laxigar Lass’ winner in SSF name game
The workboat being built for Scottish Sea Farms’ new site at Hunda in Orkney will be named ‘Laxigar Lass’ following a competition among the local community.
The Hunda staff had decided to ask the public for help when they couldn’t agree on a name for the Scottish built vessel, and the call for ideas went out on social media last week.
Orcadians were tasked with suggesting a name inspired by the local geography, in keeping with company tradition in Orkney.
Smaller vessels in the area are named after Orkney folklore, such as Mither o’ the Sea and Stoor Worm, while larger boats, such as Eday Sound and the Sandoyne Lass, take their names from places.
Enthusiastic
There was an enthusiastic response, with 79 suggestions overall, and runners-up prizes were also awarded by the three judges - farm manager Martin Mladenov, Orkney regional manager Richard Darbyshire and Orkney engineering manager Myles Heward.
The third prize and a £25 gift voucher went to seven-year-old Robbie from Burray (via his mum Hannah Thomson) who suggested ‘Hunda Rose’; second, with a £50 voucher, was Lorna Coupar for ‘Hunda Heather’; while the winning entry was suggested separately by Helen Davidson and Ingrid Mackenzie.
They will each receive a £100 voucher and will be invited to do the bottle smashing honours at the official naming ceremony at St Margaret’s Hope.
All four winners – announced in The Orcadian this morning - will then be invited to visit the new farm at Hunda once it is stocked in the early autumn.
Imagination
Darbyshire said: ‘We thought we might receive a couple of dozen suggestions to pick from, but the challenge of coming up with a name for the new workboat seems to have really caught the imagination of the Orkney public.
‘We’d like to thank everyone who took part in our competition, which resulted in a really strong name that we likely wouldn’t have come up with ourselves.
‘It’s deeply rooted in the local geography of Hunda, but with ‘lax’ being Old Norse for salmon, it’s also a nod to our Norwegian ties past and present.’
The £705,000, 17m workboat, currently under construction at Northwind Engineering in Kishorn, is due to be delivered by the end of July.
SSF is investing £3.2 million in the Hunda farm, which will have 12 x 100m pens and has consent for 1,677 tonnes of biomass.
