Longboat photo proves a hit on social media

It may be a fairly common sight for locals – but this photo of replica longboat Dim Riv sailing through Lerwick Harbour went viral on social media.

According to VisitScotland, the image of the replica Viking vessel attracted more than 10,600 likes, shares, retweets and comments on the organisation’s Twitter and Instagram accounts during the summer.

The photo was taken by “Shetland lass” Bee Leask – who tweets @bumblebambi – as the boat sailed towards the sunset.

VisitScotland Regional director Steve Mathieson said: “The way that visitors access information about Scotland has changed dramatically over the past five years and our ambition is to reach more people than ever before with inspirational and exciting information about Scotland.

“We regard our social network followers very much as a community and we enjoy engaging with both our regular contributors as much as those who communicate with us for the first time.

“We’re delighted images of Shetland are proving so popular on social media and we hope that many more people will share their own treasured stories and images of the islands with us, so we can continue inspiring visitors for many years to come.”

Despite the popularity of Bee’s photograph it was not the most shared. That accolade went to a group of images posted on Facebook of the beaches on the Isle of Harris bathed in sunshine, inspiring more than 310,000 shares, likes and comments.