Modern ro- ro vessel Hamnavoe is the current custodian of a sea link with Orkney that has a history stretching back more than 500 years. King James IV authorised three Dutch brothers named dc Groot to start a service from close to what is now John O'Groats to the southern end of South Ronaldsay in 1496, the concession remaining in the de Groot family's hands for more than two centuries. Hut it was not until the 1850s that a steamship first began running from a pier at Scrabster, a couple of miles from Thurso, to Stromness, in Orkney.
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