A seal driver is a boat. Up in the Shetlands they still hunted seals into the 70s. A seal driver would herd the seals up onto the beach where the hunters could get to them. The water around the Shetlands is very rough, very dangerous, and the sealers were famously sentimental about their boats. I think that by the time Ian wrote this the last of the seal drivers had been retired but he captured the feeling of driving seals in an open boat with a big diesel roaring.
A seal driver is a boat. Up in the Shetlands they still hunted seals into the 70s. A seal driver would herd the seals up onto the beach where the hunters could get to them. The water around the Shetlands is very rough, very dangerous, and the sealers were famously sentimental about their boats. I think that by the time Ian wrote this the last of the seal drivers had been retired but he captured the feeling of driving seals in an open boat with a big diesel roaring.