The Old Man of Hoy, Orkney

3D Model

The Old Man of Hoy is a 449 foot (137m) sea stack located on the west coast of Hoy, Orkney, Scotland. This pillar of Old Red Sandstone sits on a thick layer of basalt that juts into the Atlantic. As the tallest sea stack in Britain, the Old Man is popular with climbers and was first scaled by Chris Bonington, Rusty Baillie and Tom Patey in 1966.

This stack was formed by a cliff collapse in the late 18th or early 19th centuries and originally had two ‘legs’. One of these has since collapsed and considering the heavy seas of the Atlantic the Old Man won’t stand forever.

The cliffs on Hoy are some of the highest and most dramatic in Britain, reaching over 300m in height.

This model was created from 290 images taken with a Canon 70d from Northlink’s vessel Hamnavoe on a special Orkney Nature Festival cruise on 22nd May 2016. To complete the model I need to take additional photos from the cliff… I’ll do that when I’m next on Hoy!