"...the night the Tapti went aground. I was just walking out of the Ballard back door and the sky was alight. We didn't bother much for it wasn't long after the War and the beaches were awash with flares. The young folk would set them off for a laugh. But by the morning we knew it was for real. She had gone aground on Soay. There was no cargo aboard and two strange things happened with that boat. The lifeboats and motorboat of the Tapti were all put over the side and when the Captain and crew were finally taken to safety by the Mallaig lifeboat, the Tapti’s boats were left tied alongside until a decision was made about salvage.

Next morning that motor boat was gone. Nobody on Coll took it for we would have known. Likewise anyone from Tiree. I think it would have been a seine netter in the night.

When the salvage vessel arrived it moored in Breachacha Bay. The crew went over to the wreck in a small boat and took off the two end hatch covers. With the next tide the afterholds flooded and down she slid.

The Tapti was only a few years old. That is the other strange thing about that ship."

Alec MacLennan