The eye sweet preserved ring-netter, Shemaron: “on her way, the seas unminding”.
© Jacqui Barker

When Tarbert Loch Fyne poet George Campbell Hay (1915-1984) worked 1930s summers aboard the herring skiff Liberator, the local fishing fleet would have been universally motorised, either by conversion or by design.

Perhaps reflecting this transition, in his maritime work a vessel’s power source is either of no concern, or employed to great effect for onomatopoeic rhythm. In Ardlamont, below, we can just as well imagine that he is describing a sailing vessel if that is our desire.

Hay knew the waters of the Clyde’s fishing grounds intimately through all the weather a Scottish summer can muster. Although sheltered from the worst of the North Atlantic’s tantrums by the long peninsula of Kintyre, the Firth’s short chop still drums up lively conditions, especially at its headlands. Often, the fully laden voyage home to Loch Fyne would be against wind and wave.

(From Wind on Loch Fyne by George Campbell Hay, Oliver & Boyd, 1948 by kind permission of the Trustees of the W.L. Lorimer Memorial Trust/ Scots Language Centre.)

Ardlamont is an ode to the joy of confidence in a sound vessel that loves doing exactly what it was designed to do – that shows its true character when the going gets tough. It could only be written by someone with fierce affinity to such conditions, and vessels, and locale.

It could be a harsh life then, aboard boats that afforded none of the shelter from the elements enjoyed by today’s fisherman. The rare survivors of the shocking “decommissioning” chainsaw massacres of the 1980s and 1990s – some now authentically preserved as much loved pleasure vessels – offer snug accommodations where once there were fish.

Once upon a time, when my line of work was guiding a lovely old retired Scottish ocean racing yacht for her summer holidays in the Mediterranean, I woke up one morning to this sight for sore eyes at anchor next door in Puerto d’Andraitx, Mallorca: the unmistakably lovely lines of a “Loch Fyne Skiff.”

Sireadh at Puerto de Andraitx, 1991
© Iain McAllister

Sireadh was far from the waters of her youth, where she had worked out of Minard on the west shore of Upper Loch Fyne with her ring-netting partner, Clan McNab. They’d been the last of the once numerous Upper Loch Fyne herring fleet.

Her English owners were to introduce this lowlander to a shameful gap in his knowledge of Scottish literature: the work of George Campbell Hay, and his epic but generally unknown poem Seeker, Reaper, first published in 1948.

I learned that Sireadh is gaelic for Seeker, and that Hay started thinking about the poem after she motored past one night.

That I should encounter ocean roving Sireadh and George Campbell Hay so far from home seemed so apt when I eventually caught up with Seeker, Reaper. There can be no doubt about this vessel’s power source. It ends:

(From Wind on Loch Fyne by George Campbell Hay, Oliver & Boyd, 1948 by kind permission of the Trustees of the W.L. Lorimer Memorial Trust/ Scots Language Centre.)

This year’s Fife Regatta fleet will enter Loch Fyne for the first time, turning to starboard coming out of the East “Kerry” Kyle of Bute en route from Tighnabruaich to Portavadie Marina.

Will they be “wounding, stamping” their way round Ardlamont? If they are, it’ll be a magnificent sight, and unlike George Campbell Hay’s time, Ceud Mìle Fàilte and a warm shower awaits at Portavadie: an oasis of modern “facilities”, on what the Tarbert fishermen of old would have simply though of as a dangerous lee shore – “The Kerry Shore”. But that’s another of Hay’s fine poems, so we better stop. For now.

Our title refers to the class name for two ground-breaking “Scottish Literature Class” hybrid ferries in build at Ferguson Shipbuilders, Port Glasgow, for Caledonian MacBrayne. Unfortunately no works of local literature were considered for the short leet of three names for public voting for the second ferry, to operate across Loch Fyne from Tarbert to Portavadie. How can George Campbell Hay be so forgotten?

Sireadh is a rare example from her period in Scotland of a working fishing vessel designed by a yacht designer: she was drawn by W.G. McBryde of Glasgow and built in 1923 by Miller of  St. Monance, Fife, which means that she is also a rare example at that time of a west coast “Skiff” type built on the east coast.

On the other hand, in 1887 G.L. Watson probably started the popular trend for sturdy cruising yachts along the lines of the Loch Fyne Skiffs with Nell, design number 134, built by Thomas Orr Jr. of Greenock. She’s still going too, although in for a bit of surgery at the moment. We hope to come back to Nell later.

Shortly after  Sireadh’s build, by the mid 1920s,  W.G. McBryde and Miller of St. Monance were combining to evolve the next generation of “cruiser stern” type that would  become the ubiquitous Scottish fishing vessel into the 1970s – like Shemaron above, launched in 1949 by William Weatherhead of Cockenzie for an Ayrshire owner, by which time boats built on the east coast for work on the west coast were quite a normal thing.

So Sireadh became one of the last of the working Loch Fyne Skiffs built. She was sold to Northern Ireland and converted to a yacht just before the Second World War, briefly appeared in the 1946 Supplement to Lloyds Register of Yachts 1939 as “sold and now a fishing vessel” (perhaps reflecting requisitioned war service), and reappeared as the yacht Golden Plover in 1949. We hope she is still going as strong as she was in Mallorca in 1991, as Sireadh again.

IM

Thanks to gCaptain.

Altair: one of Scotland’s all time most beautiful things. Made by men who worked with their head and their hands – and their heart.

Designed, built and launched at Fairlie, Ayrshire, Scotland, 1931, by William Fife and Son.

IM (Thanks to Classic Boat & Sandeman Yacht Company)

Water Wag dinghy class historian Vincent Delany has uncovered more remarkable vintage sailing regatta footage at Dublin’s Irish Film Archive – this time in colour – showing vibrant regatta activity off Howth Harbour, County Dublin, in the summer of 1942.

Yes, 1942, during the Emergency, as the World War II years were officially known in neutral Ireland.

Where else in the world were such scenes played out in that year? The USA had gone to war against Japan and Germany the previous December; nowhere else in the Northern Hemisphere, we think – perhaps only in Argentina in the Southern Hemishere?

Sit back and enjoy only beautiful yachts, many of them gaff rigged, the majority of them locally designed and built – all in glorious colour – a rare treat thanks to Howth Yacht Club.

In his monumental 1995 book Howth – A Centenary of Sailing – a valuable social document as well as a comprehensive north Dublin sailing history – W.M. Nixon records that Howth Sailing Club’s Lambay [Island] Race attracted 21 starters in 1942, with no less than 73 yachts taking part the August Regatta.

Presumably such numbers reflected an increased confidence in security. During the early part of the previous year the east coast of neutral Ireland had found itself under aerial bombardment, and later in the spring and early summer of 1941, Belfast, a day’s sail north, as part of the United Kingdom had been heavily blitzed more than once, along with Britain’s major industrial and shipbuilding centres. It is said that the three nights of the Swansea “blitz” in late February 1941 could be heard in County Wexford.

But by the summer of 1942, with the theatres of conflict moving east, the threat of direct contact with war had receded – and the sun obviously put its hat on for the cameraman and the sailors.

I’m an imposter here, from across the water in another Celtic land. While similar scenes in Dublin Bay would be a paradise for a Scottish yachting historian, with most of the classes there designed by William Fife Jr and Alfred Mylne, Howth was a centre of home grown talent. This footage is a remarkable testament to the fine work of two of Ireland’s best yacht designers, W. Herbert Boyd and John (J.B.) Kearney.

But I’ll dare to take a stab at some boat spotting below. It would be wonderful if additions, corrections and people-spotting contributions could be added in the “Leave a Reply” box below.

01:19 et seq

The Howth 17-Footers (length water line) feature throughout: designed by W.H. Boyd of Howth, they first raced as a class in 1898 and still do – recognizable by their very high peaked, nowadays multicoloured, jackyard topsails.

“4”: 17-Footer Zaida built by James Clancy, Kingstown, 1900. Owner in 1942, H.H. Poole.

02:35

The dark hulled canoe stern yawl is Mavis, an Irish yachting icon, designed and built for himself  in Ringsend, Dublin by John Kearney in 1925. She is presently based in Maine, USA. She appears many times more, especially in close-up at 04:18.

02:40

Believed to be Rosalind, designed John Kearney, built by Morris & Lorimer, Sandbank, Clyde, Scotland, 1936 (same model as Evora at 05:52). Owner in 1942, Dr T.J.D. Lane.

02:46

To right of the angler, M.Y. Rena, designed and built by John Leitch & Co., Renfrew, Clyde, Scotland. Owner in 1942, Howth Motor YC Commodore, William Lacy.

03:27

“12”: 17-Footer Rosemary, built by J. Kelly, Portrush, 1907. Owner in 1942, A.F.B. Thompson.

03:41

“6”: Mercia III, designed by G.U. Laws, Burnham on Crouch, Essex, England, built by her first owner, J. Jarvis Jr., either at London or Burnham, 1908. Owner in 1942, Smallridge family. Hopefully alive and kicking somewhere in NW England. She won the yacht races on Dublin Bay during the 1924 Tailteann Games.

03:46

Varnished MFV D335. She’s beautiful. What’s she called and who built her?

UPDATE 8 April 2013: identified by Sean Norris as the fishing vessel Deirdre, built by Tyrells of Arklow in 1942. Later worked out of Kinsale, Rosslare, Wexford and Portavogie. What became of this “yacht-finish” fishing boat? Who was her first owner?

04:05

“84”: Tumlaren Class, Tumbler, designed by Knud Reimers, Sweden. Owner in 1942, Launce McMullen.

04:29

Mavis, with to leeward possibly Rosalind.

From 04:46

“12”: Danish “spidtsgatter” Curlew, designed by M.S.J. Hansen, built by Viggo Hansen, Kastrup, Copenhagen, 1933. Owner in 1942, J.J. McDowell.

Possibly Osamunda, designed by J.A. Smith and built by F. Maynard, Chiswick, London, 1906. Owner in 1942 Douglas Mellon.

05:45

“265”: Marama, designed by E.P. Hart, built by Berthon Boat Co., Lymington (as Izme), 1923. Owner in 1942, Harald Osterberg.

05:52

“7”: Evora, designed John Kearney, Dublin, built by H. Skinner & Son, Baltimore, Co. Cork, 1937. Owner in 1942, Master O’Hanlon.

06:44

Stella, designed and built by John Kearney, c1927. Owner in 1942, F.M. Walsh.

07.43–07:52

Believed to be Punctilio, Dublin Bay 25-Footer (waterline), designed by William Fife Jr., built by Charles Sibbick, Cowes, 1898. Owner in 1942, J.B. Stephens.

07:52

Green hulled cutter = ?

08:38

Cutter with tan sails, Huzure, designed by Captain O.M. Watts Ltd., built by A.V. Robertson & Co., Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, 1937. Owner in 1942, Keith McFerran.

08:48

The dark hull, clipper bow sloop moored off the bow of the lifeboat is believed to be Eithne, designed and built by W.H. Boyd, Howth, 1893 and still owned by him in 1942.

10:22

“16”: 17-Footer Eileen, built by M.Moloney, Kingstown, 1908. Owner in 1942, T.H. Roche.

The above information would be impossible to compile without reference to, and huge thanks for W.N. “Winkie” Nixon’s two invaluable, incredibly detailed and entertaining contributions to the documentation of Irish yachting history, To Sail the Crested Sea – the story of Irish cruising and the first fifty years of the Irish Cruising Club (1979), and Howth – A Centenary of Sailing (1995). Reference was also made to Erroll MacNally’s 1946 publication, Irish Yachting (1720–1946), the Donal O’Sullivan compiled, Dublin Bay – A Century of Sailing (1984) and Lloyd’s Register of Yachts.

As sailors in the warmer parts of the world, and hardy souls in higher latitudes, find their feet with the most recent revision of the Racing Rules of Sailing – in force since January 1^st –  it’s worth reflecting on the origins of the codification of sailing boat racing. Where did it start?

Click here to buy online.

Irish yachting historian, Hal Sisk, is very sure about that, and makes a strong case in his new publication -

Dublin Bay – The Cradle of Yacht Racing.

This attractive, revealing and beautifully illustrated book describes how the worldwide phenomenon of competitive sailing for fun was popularised and formatted by the pioneering yachtsmen of Dublin Bay during the mid 19th Century.

IM

After a public vote, the world’s second hybrid ferry – to be launched in May at Ferguson Shipbuilders, Port Glasgow – will be called Lochinvar, from Walter Scott’s 1808 poem Marmion , and following the “Scottish Literature Class” theme of her older sister Hallaig.

There is no local connection in that name with the route she will ply across Loch Fyne between Tarbert and Portavadie, but at least it harks back to a still much loved West Highland “steamer” (actually diesel powered) of older times – even a film star.

The first Lochinvar led an exceptionally long life, and in her middle ages briefly starred in the 1945 Powell & Pressburger movie I Know Where I’m Going! – surely one of the best lazy winter Sunday afternoon old flicks.

Lochinvar (II) is scheduled to be launched at Port Glasgow on 23rd May.

IM

Glasgow naval architect and yacht designer G.L. Watson once described yacht building as “the poetry of ship building”. Read more about Martin Black’s biography, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design here.

A superb image was posted on The Reliance Project’s blog yesterday to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the launching of the 1903 America’s Cup defender “super cutter” Reliance at the Herreshoff yard, Bristol, RI., USA.

No skirts needed to hide her beautiful and potent lines: her adversary, the William Fife Jr. designed Shamrock III had already been launched – on Paddy’s Day, of course – at Wm. Denny Bros. of Dumbarton, Scotland.

And everyone seemed to have supreme confidence in her minimalistic cradle – presumably designed by the the master engineer himself, Nathanael Herreshoff.

Progress with this fascinating and meticulous project – to build a one-sixth scale museum-quality fully rigged model – seems to be warming up with the season.

Martin Black’s biography of G.L. Watson, designer of Sir Thomas Lipton’s previous America’s Cup challenger, Shamrock (II), reveals how the challengers handled the knowledge that the little known tank testing of Shamrock III had indicated that she would be slower than Shamrock II…

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Charles Henry Ashley really is a G.L. Watson for the Weekend – you can sail and row in her… or should it be row and sail…

Peter Williams / Clwb Cychod Cemaes

“To a reader today, it may seem strange that men would elect to use oars as the motive power in a lifeboat that they would take to sea in the most testing conditions. But the crews were local fishermen who might well have used sail to take them out to the fishing grounds, but who recognised from long experience the power and precision that rowing offered in a boat of 40ft or less. Generally speaking, on those parts of the coast where there were many sandbanks and shallow water, the men tended to favour oars because it gave them very close control over their craft. The last pulling lifeboat did not leave service until about 1948.”

(Martin Black, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design)

The pulling and sailing lifeboat Charles Henry Ashley, fully restored and operated by Clwb Cychod Cemaes/ Cemaes Boat Club on the north coast of Anglesey, North Wales, is a remarkable survivor from the days when man and sail power were still preferred by the majority of the crews of smaller lifeboats of Britain and Ireland over the fledgling internal combustion engine.

Built in 1907 by Thames Ironworks at Bow Creek to G.L. Watson’s 38ft non self-righting* design, she cost £1090, and  remained (very patiently… launched in anger only seven times) on station until 1932 at her precarious and exposed looking eyrie at nearby Porth yr Ogof. Perhaps her light use in service contributed to her later survival and revival…

Try that as well as shipping oars and raising rig in an onshore breeze… / Clwb Cychod Cemaes

Voila! / Clwb Cychod Cemaes

After decommissioning, the station was closed and Charles Henry Ashley led the usual life of many an ex-lifeboat – a combination of pleasure boating, lay up and static display. But importantly for her unique place now in posterity and in the G.L. Watson story, she never left the area, and her previous role in the maritime life of that exposed coast wasn’t forgotten.

Her rebuild in the experienced local hands of John Jones, Classic Sailboats – builder of many of the newer Dublin Bay Water Wag dinghies as well as Hal Sisk’s replica Dublin Bay Colleen Class sloop Colleen Bawn – was completed in 2009.

© Kevin Lewis photosbykev.com

Clwb Cychod Cemaes/Cemaes Boat Club offer a unique chance to experience the skills and fitness levels of the remarkable lifeboatmen of the past aboard the Charles Henry Ashley, with various levels of membership, including “Single Day Sail”.

For anyone experienced, or just interested in the joy of the teamwork involved in rowing twelve oars in unison, it’s surely the chance of a lifetime. But the adrenalin rush of – like it or not – hurtling down a slipway at more than hull speed, shipping oars and raising sail into a strong onshore breeze – on the call of volunteer duty – will just have to be imagined. Nowadays her home is the picturesque drying harbour at Cemaes; sailing sessions follow nature’s timetable.

IM/ MB (Big thanks to Mac Ozanne of Cemaes Boat Club, and photographer Kevin Lewis)

*Amid all the pomp and circumstance of his long hours on designs for America’s Cup challengers and palatial steam yachts, G.L. Watson worked from 1887 for a very low annual stipend on improvements to lifeboat design as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s Consulting Naval Architect. He advocated better stability over self-righting ability. Via his successors, J.R. Barnett, William Smart and Allen McLachlan, G.L. Watson & Co. continued the consultancy right up to the relatively modern 52ft (16m) Arun Class, the last of which was withdrawn from service in 2008.

Read all about it in Martin Black’s comprehensive and beautiful biography -

G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design.

Charles Henry Ashley with a modern Trent Class lifeboat at Cemaes Bay RNLI Day, 2011
© Kevin Lewis photosbykev.com

A colourful start on Dublin Bay: Squibs at the Royal Alfred YC Baily Bowl, 26 May 2013.
© Iain McAllister

What is the definition of a yacht club? One might think of a plush clubhouse, a bit stuffy maybe – especially if long established – and strict dress codes… But in the sometimes strange world of yachting tradition there are many long established and still very active yacht clubs that have never owned a clubhouse. They major on sailing – more often than not, stricly amateur, or properly, Corinthian sailing. The Royal Alfred Yacht Club is a great example.

In his book Dublin Bay – The Cradle of Yacht Racing, Irish yachting historian, Hal Sisk, claims “The Alfred” as the world’s first amateur sailing/ yachting club. When it was established in 1857, the sport of yachting was almost completely professional – on a par with horse racing. One owned a yacht, but the matter of sailing it was left to a full time skipper, and paid hands who often fished by winter and sailed by summer. As Para Handy’s mate, Dougie, once commented on the Clyde:

“…it’s a suit or two o’ clothes in the year, and a pleasant occupaation. Most o’ the time in canvas sluppers.”

But in the mid-19th Century, The Alfred began a trend that proved not to be a fad – the sport of racing one’s own boat with a crew of friends.

Last sparkling weekend on Dublin Bay they ran their annual Baily Bowl regatta for one-designs, impeccably, in good humour… and anyway, sprinkled liberally around Dún Laoghaire there are welcoming yacht clubs with magnificent clubhouses to use as base; clubs that have discovered the secret of balancing tradition with modernity. This year’s hosts were the National Yacht Club. Next up, it’s the Royal Irish YC’s turn to host The Alfred’s Bloomsday Regatta on June 15th, where fancy dress in the spirit of James Joyce’s Dublin is a fun optional “sailing instruction”.

The yacht racing rules – properly nowadays The Racing Rules of Sailing – were invented in Dublin Bay. Read all about it in Hal Sisk’s entertaining and beautifully illustrated book, Dublin Bay – The Cradle of Yacht Racing.

But stay a little longer for more snapshots of a sparkling May weekend on Dublin Bay.

Andrew Craig’s Chimaera leading the Dragons dead downwind from Dalkey Island.
© Iain McAllister

Oops, a RIB goes walkabout. UCD Sailing to the rescue…
© Iain McAllister

49erFX Olympic hopeful, Tiffany Brien, dominated a competitive fleet of Belfast Lough RS Elites.
© Iain McAllister

After all that battleship grey we need some colour again. Squibs! No.820 Quickstep won overall.
© Iain McAllister

Will the Dragons Phantom and Jaguar catch the Galway Hooker Naomh Cronan?
© Iain McAllister

Yacht nomenclature.
© Iain McAllister

On the crest of a wave. Dragon overall winner Chaemira helmed by Andrew Craig.
© Iain McAllister

Champagne sailing.
© Iain McAllister

IM

For the first time since its inception in 1998, this year’s Fife Regatta will host one of the rare examples of a yacht built by the famous Fairlie boatyard to drawings by another designer: the Salcombe Saint One Design St Patrick, designed by G.L. Watson & Co., and completed in 1919 by William Fife & Son – the dream team, Watsons and Fife.

St Patrick sailing at Kippford 1950s
Iain McAllister collection

As naval architect Jack Gifford recounts, after a very short stay in Devon, together with her sister (brother?) ships, named, of course, St Andrew, St David and St George, she got around a bit before returning to Scotland to join the vibrant post-WW2 sailing scene on Scotland’s little known south coast, especially on Loch Ryan, and at Kippford where this happy image was snapped in the early 1950s.

After a period where she lost her way, she was rescued by her original design office to become “works boat” after rebuilding on the River Hamble by Fife restoration specialists Fairlie Restorations – the dream team again, and the luck of the Irish.

What became of her three saintly sister/ brother ships remains one of classic yachting’s tantalising mysteries…

IM

This wonderful image from G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design of Shamrock II’s huge jackyard topsail being raised at Rothesay, Isle of Bute in 1901 made The Herald Scotland magazine’s Saturday Portfolio spot last weekend.

Try to imagine one of the present day America’s Cup 72ft foiling catamarans buzzing about the Firth of Clyde this weekend, and what a fuss that would create.

It would have been the same at Rothesay in 1901 when Shamrock II was undergoing trials with the William Fife Jr designed Shamrock I prior to departing Gourock Bay later in the summer – for Sir Thomas Lipton’s 2nd Clyde designed and “Clydebuilt” America’s Cup challenge off New York.

IM

The exquisitely varnished David Ryder-Turner designed 23ft sloop Amber, built by McGruer apprentices in 1992, berthed at Rhu beside examples of the work of McKellar (Kilcreggan), Miller (St. Monance), Mylne (Glasgow), Smith (Tighnabruaich) and GL Watson & Co (Glasgow). The white hulled Watson motor yacht Chico guards her flock in the background.
© Iain McAllister

Clyde Classic, the first of three very special Scottish and Irish classic yacht regattas this summer, survived a blustery weekend at Rhu on the upper Firth of Clyde – not least because events off the water, at the associated Design Symposium, were as important as the water-borne activities.

The eclectic fleet of beautifully restored and maintained classics travelled from as far as the Medway and Cornwall to celebrate over 100 years of yacht design around the Firth of Clyde and beyond at Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club and Rhu Marina.

Their designers included, from the Clyde and West of Scotland, The Fifes of Fairlie – Sr and Jr, Ewing and James McGruer (Clynder), Alfred Mylne and G.L. Watson (Glasgow) – alongside representatives of the work of Nathanael Herreshoff (USA) and Henry Rasmussen (Denmark/ Germany).

The Firth of Clyde has such a rich history of yacht designing and building; it’s a no-brainer that such an event should happen there. Here’s hoping that organiser Gordon Drysdale can establish Clyde Classic as a regular fixture.

Next up is the much anticipated 4th running of The Fife Regatta, at Largs and around the Firth of Clyde from Friday 28th June – with a number of entrants continuing south to the bi-annual festival of beautiful boats, large and very small, in the equally beautiful surroundings of Glandore, County Cork, Ireland.

The Clyde Classic Regatta’s accommodation vessel was the impressive 73ft G.L. Watson & Co. designed motor yacht Chico, a veteran of Dunkirk built by the famous east coast yard, Miller of St. Monance, and powered by iconic twin Gardner diesel engines.

Chico seems to be proving that there is a market for Firth of Clyde and West Coast of Scotland classic charter, soaking in the atmosphere captured by author Martin Black in his sumptuous book, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design.

Martin spoke on Watson at the symposium alongside Peggy Bawn Press publisher, Hal Sisk, who presented the case for the The Clyde as the World Centre of the Sport of Yacht Racing, and PBP jack of all trades, your faithful scribe, who attempted to raise the profile of  some of the Clyde’s lesser known but no less prolific and excellent yacht designers.

IM

Latifa off Ardlamont, July 2, 2013 .
“… tramping on her way, the seas unminding, swinging forefoot wounding, stamping.”*
Seen from the cockpit of Ayrshire Lass, The Fife Regatta’s oldest entrant – launched by William Fife Sr. at Fairlie in 1887. © Iain McAllister

“Poor Latifa: always head to wind,” many a knowledgeable sailor thinks when paying respects to Fairlie Parish Church’s beautiful wind vane.

Fairlie Boat Builders

Yesterday off Ardlamont – the south-western tip of Argyll’s Cowal Penninsula – during The Fife Regatta’s thrash from Tighnabruaich to Portavadie, we saw the real Latifa come alive, full and by, as William Fife Jr. must have visualised this exquisite – some would say the finest – example of the functional art that flowed from his drawing boards and models, through his Fairlie boatyard to the firths, seas and oceans.

Fife was 79 when he designed and built Latifa as an ocean racer.

She never stops.

(*From Wind on Loch Fyne by George Campbell Hay, Oliver & Boyd, 1948 by kind permission of the Trustees of the W.L. Lorimer Memorial Trust/ Scots Language Centre.)

@ Iain McAllister

@ Iain McAllister

IM

S.S. Hebrides in her 50s
Dan McDonald / Ballast Trust

The world’s first hybrid roll-on-roll-off ferry, Hallaig, built by Ferguson Shipbuilders of Port Glasgow for Caledonian MacBrayne’s Sconser (Skye) / Raasay route, began trials last week on the Firth of Clyde.

When launched last December, she was billed as the first merchant vessel to be built on the Clyde for five years. However, perusal of her motorman’s entertaining blog suggests otherwise. Two small shipbuilding locations with a proud history, including yacht building, have been busy fulfilling a rising demand for inshore workboats: presently for the fish farming industry; perhaps soon for offshore windfarm servicing.

Hallaig trying out the Cumbrae run.
hebrides-hebridesships-blogspot

Hallaig is scheduled to enter service in the autumn, with her sistership, Lochinvar, due to take on the Tarbert / Portavadie route across Loch Fyne around the turn of the year.

Meanwhile, not very far to the east, a ro-ro car ferry of a different generation, Glenachuilish, last week celebrated 45 years of West Highlands service: firstly across the strong currents of the former Ballachulish crossing, and for the past 31 years on the privately run Glenelg / Skye route across Kylerhea, where spring tides can run at 8 knots. It’s the maritime equivalent of a “cross-wind landing”.

Built in 1969 by Ailsa Shipbuilding at Troon – a yard very well-known to yacht designer G.L. Watson – Glenachuilish is believed to be the last manually operated turntable ferry in service… in Scotland… in the UK… in the world; nobody seems to have the definitive answer. What’s for sure is that she was well “Clydebuilt”, and worth a major birthday party bash at Glenelg Village Hall.

Glenachulish at Kylerhea
John Bointon

These tales of the most utilitarian of vessels must be miles from the finery of the G.L. Watson story one might think… But from the same drawing boards that witnessed fast and fabulous racing and cruising cutters, schooners and yawls, and sumptuous steam yachts, G.L. Watson would occasionally take on contracts for the design of quite substantial commercial vessels, and we’ve already mentioned his valuable contribution to the development of life saving craft.

Watson’s 1897 design for the John McCallum & Co. West Highlands steamer, Hebrides (design no. 370), repeated an early improvement in “cargo” handling employed on her earlier sister, Hebridean (design no. 43, 1881): large doors within the topsides to allow ease of livestock loading and unloading. One hesitates to imagine what such operations might have been like before that.

Hebrides features strongly in this remarkable c.1928 footage of a voyage to remote and then still populated St. Kilda. She was well named and had a long life.

Did you see the beautiful skylight incorporating seating on the aft deck? Ewen McGee’s drawing reveals that it lit her dining saloon; it must have done so wonderfully. Designers of those days were deft at the projection of natural light – but that’s another story.

Sitting comfortably for Part 2?

[Thanks to bloggers Paul and Isle Ornsay for heads up on the vintage footage.]

IM

Martin Black’s beautifully illustrated and produced biography G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design is available to purchase direct from Peggy Bawn Press here.

Just before posting, we found the evocative and beautifully captured image above of the happy looking Hallaig trying out the Cumbrae Slip / Largs route by the blogger hebrides-hebridesships.  Who are we to argue with that bold sub-title – the images there are stunning – and we wont argue if we are requested to take it down; we failed to find any method of contact, and, as many will testify, we don’t normally run without permission. The Clyde is nothing less than awesome. [Did we just use that word?]

Recent developments in the cry wolf, tug of love, not in my back yard – then, in mine please! – no, mine thanks! saga of the high-and-dry 1864 Sunderland built clipper ship, City of Adelaide, rather passed me by of late.

But now there is action in Irvine, Ayrshire, and its silted-up River Garnock; in fact things are happening relatively quickly.

Dutch specialists have recently been assembling under her a steel cradle that was fabricated in Australia and shipped to the Clyde (ah well, coal has been sent to Newcastle…), which will allow this rather amazing monument to the strength of “composite” construction to be lifted aboard a specialist ship for transportation to her new home. And to even more challenges – the age-old “restoration” dilemmas – at the South Australian port she was originally named after.

Whatever the ins and outs of whether she should simply have been recorded in great detail, then broken up (demolition was the much more traumatic sounding, landlubberly term employed a few years ago), “City of Adelaide” is a fascinating reminder of the huge pull these ships had in their day on the minds of young men with a passion for the design of these legendary hell for leather passage-makers. Young men like G.L. Watson, who was 13 in 1864 and soon to begin his training at two of the River Clyde’s most innovative shipyards: Napier of Govan and Inglis of Pointhouse.

I keep my pleasant early 1980s memories of a superb Glasgow city centre lunch venue with water feature, from when she was last alive and afloat as the Carrick. It would be nice to do the same someday, down under…

As they say around the Clyde, gaun yersel!

IM

G.L. Watson’s early life and the metropolitan, cosmopolitan and industrial influences of the rise of Glasgow that shaped his remarkable career are covered in great depth and beautifully illustrated in Martin Black’s biography, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design.

Caladh : iconic Firth of Clyde haven.
Savills

Not a Watson in sight here. But the story of G.L. Watson’s rise to fame as a designer of superb yachts of all types is very much part of the 19th Century development of the Firth of Clyde as a leisure playground – when all levels of society were benefitting from the almost unique combination of  Glasgow’s immense industrial power and wealth generation happening within a short train ride from an aquatic paradise.

As the Ballast Trust’s excellent blog shows, the train and steamer companies were key to the plan: encouraging riparian summer-house villa feus in previously relatively remote parts of the Firth, and enticing trippers “doon the watter” from the grime of Glasgow.

In the case of the fabulously wealthy civil engineer, George Stephenson, nephew of the great locomotive pioneer, George – of Rocket fame – he could pretty much pick his spot. So he chose perhaps the best of all, Glencaladh, at the northern meeting of the west and east Kyles of Bute. And he didn’t need to depend on the “public” paddle steamers as his mode of transport. George had his very own paddler, the George Crow, built on Tyneside in 1867, to serve as transport, tug and tender to his fleet of sailing and steam yachts.

19th Century Glencaladh.
Tour Scotland

Now this most beautiful of havens, which recently witnessed the sail past of the 2013 Fife Regatta fleet, is for sale minus the Scots Baronial style mansion of Stephenson’s day, which was demolished after WWII.

It is the dream home of most Firth of Clyde sailors.

Lighthouse Cottage.
Savills

Savills

Savills

Martin Black’s profusely illustrated biography, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design, includes a wonderful early 1880s Thomas Annan image of Glencaladh with George Stephenson’s fleet of yachts crowding the anchorage, including the paddle tug George Crow. It can be purchased online here.

IM

Some amazing stuff going on in racing yacht design these days; luckily for us, some of the folk at the leading edge just love to talk about it.

With worldwide interest in the design and sailing of multihulls massively on the rise via the exposure of the (big) America’s Cup, interest in this September’s running of the Little America’s Cup at Falmouth, Cornwall, is raising above geek level… or is it just that the geeks are cool now…

Here Magnus Clarke talks us through the developing anatomy of a Little America’s Cup defending flying boat, prompted by Sailing Anarchy’s redoubtable Mr Clean.

We think G.L. Watson would have found it all pretty cool. He was undoubtedly at the leading edge of his day.

IM

Queen of Scots (1904), and her Avro Avian (1929), bound for “Treasure Island” in 1934.
Martin Black

What’s the definition of a superyacht? And a megayacht? If a yacht has the capability to be the base for a flying machine – to launch, recover and service it – that’s pretty super; even mega. It certainly would have been in 1934.

Was the G.L. Watson designed steam yacht, Queen of Scots, the first to include an aircraft in its ‘toys’ inventory?

So many questions that we don’t have all the answers for. One thing is for sure: if your steam yacht sports a seaplane and an ‘electric gold diviner’, with Shackleton veterans Frank Worsley and Joseph Stenhouse in joint command, there’s bound to be the whiff of adventure in the air.

Queen of Scots was  departing London’s West India Docks on a treasure hunting expedition to Cocos Island, off Costa Rica. As one might expect, things didn’t exactly go smoothly…

The aircraft, registration G-AACV,  was an Avro 616 Avian IVM manufactured in 1928/29 by A.V. Roe & Co Ltd of Woodford, England. It may have been converted after manufacture to the floatplane for shipboard use we see here. Its ‘aviator’ was named as J.E. Martin, formerly of Marconi International Marine Co.

The steam yacht, Queen of Scots, was one of the last of G.L. Watson’s designs to be launched – by Fairfields, of Govan, Glasgow – before his premature death at the age of just 53, in 1904. She was commissioned by William A. Coats, of the Paisley threadmaking dynasty, and owned at the time of the treasure hunting expedition by Philadelphia financier, J. Anthony Drexel Jr, who, according to one newspaper report, may have shipped aboard to Cocos Island. Drexel was an aviator, and her subsequent owner/broker was another larger than life character closely associated with the pioneering days of aviation (via his brother Claud), motor racing, and superyacht charter/brokerage… Montague Grahame-White.

Like many superannuated steam yachts, Queen of Scots ended her days post WWII in the eastern Mediterranean as the Greek-owned, Panamanian-flagged ferry/cargo vessel Dolores. She was broken up in 1952.

Martin Black’s profusely illustrated biography, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design, is as much a social history as a biography and technical appraisal. Watson’s eclectic client list included more than a few interesting 19th and early 20th Century international personalities.  It can be purchased online here.

IM

William Fife’s 1903 America’s Cup challenger Shamrock III showing her nickel steel plates in Erie Basin.
Library of Congress

The Herreshoff Marine Museum blog, supporting their project to build a one-sixth scale museum-quality fully rigged model of the 1903 America’s Cup defender, presently poses the question to metallurgists and engineers:

“… how susceptible to galvanic action was Reliance?”

The America’s Cup defending and challenging yachts of 1899 onwards were self-destructive from the moment of launch, such was the mix of metals employed in their – state of the art for the time – hull structures of aluminium, bronze, iron and steel.

As early as 1881, Scottish yacht designer G.L. Watson, lecturing at the Glasgow Naval and Marine Engineering Exhibition, had prophesied:

“… and when we do arrive at perfection in shape, we can set to then to look out for better material. The frames and beams, then, of my ideal ship shall be of aluminium, the plating below water of manganese bronze, and top-sides of aluminium, while I think it will be well to deck her too with that lightest of metals, as good yellow pine ['white pine' in USA - IM] will soon be seen only in a museum.”

Always one for a wry sense of humour, Watson concluded:

“For ballast, of course, we should have nothing but platinum, unless the owner grudged the expense, when we might put the top tier of gold.”

Martin Black’s fabulous biography, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design, shows how the Scottish yacht designer was the first to tank-test a sailing yacht of any kind – at the Denny Tank, Dumbarton – during his research for the design of Sir Thomas Lipton’s 1901 America’s Cup challenger, Shamrock II.

IM

During an all too brief recent passage stopover at fascinating and beautiful Rathlin Island, just off the north east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland – but another world – this poster at the excellent fish shop within the National Trust’s Manor House at Church Bay caught our eye.

According to some accounts, model yacht racing has been an island activity for 200 years; about as long then as real size yachting has been an organised sport. So it’s not surprising that there is a wonderful tradition here surrounding the building and racing of, nowadays, beautifully vintage model yachts.

Perhaps, given the more often than not turbulent waters surrounding them, by wind and by tide, it’s not surprising that the islanders chose this avenue of pleasure boating – on freshwater Ushet Lough.

But just because they are models doesn’t mean this is a leisurely sport. Steering is by sail trim prowess and a tacking stick; to keep up with that task requires a brisk pace around the 5 miles circumference of the Lough – and we note that there is a “single-handed” prize.

Here is some wonderful vintage footage from c.1956.

Got to find out more about this… Could this be the world’s oldest one design class by far?

Budding yacht designers of G.L. Watson’s generation would often be germinated by contact with pond model yacht racing, which during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries developed into a serious – often “artisan” – international sport. Developments in model yacht design were always way ahead of the more conservative advances in full scale.

In his deeply researched and beautifully illustrated biography, G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design, Martin Black discusses G.L. Watson’s pioneering 1900-1901 model tank testing work at Dennys of Dumbarton for the designs of James Gordon Bennett’s radical steam yacht, Lysistrata, and Sir Thomas Lipton’s America’s Cup challenger, Shamrock II, including the sailing of  Shamrock II model proposals on Loch Lomond to test sail configurations.

IM

This is not a classic yacht race. In the late 1960s, the elegant, bespoke, mostly locally designed and built yachts seen in the beautifully planned, filmed and paced documentary below were the norm on the Firth of Clyde and West Coast of Scotland.

The Clyde Cruising Club’s famous Tobermory Race was once a huge annual draw for competitors, and spectators for the passage of the Crinan Canal, over the Glasgow Fair Weekend: the beginning of the annual trades holidays, when – unthinkable nowadays – the wheels of industry would close down for two weeks.

In 1968, for the first time in the history of the race, over 100 yachts took part, with 105 starters for the first leg from Port Bannatyne (Isle of Bute) to Ardrishaig (Loch Fyne).

Spare half an hour to go back in time with a very youthful Magnus Magnusson, and then read on for director Louis Miller’s delightful “storyboard” on how it came about: the difficulties involved in making what was, on reflection, groundbreaking yacht racing footage from pre-digital days, when, as Ian Nicolson remembers, 14 individual pieces of technical equipment, a cameraman and a sound recordist were placed aboard the 35ft ketch, St. Mary.

And then to our usual boat-spotters guide, which we hope you’ll contribute to improving.

The Tobermory Race – The Story of the Film

by Louis Miller

A light breeze rippled across Kames Bay, dispelling the last of the night. The water sparkled in the early morning sunlight, reflecting the tall masts of a hundred motionless yachts, and the rhythmic tapping of a halliard carried clear across the water.

It was not yet six o’clock on the fair Saturday morning, but already there were stirrings of life throughout the assembled fleet. The splash of a bucket, the creak of a hatch, a shrill young voice, the ‘putt-putt’ of an outboard heading shorewards. With a big race ahead, there were many who wanted plenty of time to get organised.

Donald McIntyre’s launch came alongside Christina of Cascais and Dick Johnstone climbed gingerly aboard. He stood very still for a moment, his knuckles gleaming white as he gripped the shroud, his face expressionless. As we transferred his gear, cameras, lens boxes, magazine cases, stock boxes, etc., he took a long hard look at the narrow deck under his feet. I don’t know what his thoughts were, but I do know that it was the first time he had ever set foot on a racing yacht and the stark simplicity of an eight metre is not calculated to inspire a feeling of security! We left him to the tender mercies of the still sleeping Kenny Gall and his hung-over crew. Looking back we could see him knocking very tentatively on the coach roof.

The sun climbed higher in the sky as our launch threaded its way through the wakening fleet. Charles Tookey and Peter Powell were already filming the increasing activity around us, while Derek Anderson was busy recording the hundred and one sounds that make up the music of small boats. Winches clacked and rattled, anchor chains clattered and clanked, halliards creaked and groaned. Disembodied voices floated across from boat to boat, hearty laughter, half a sentence, a string of curses. The single-mindedness of preparing a yacht for a race.

Jib hanks clicked against forestays and big genoas filled and breathed deeply.

We came alongside St. Mary. Alex Pearce and Nigel Wake went aboard. I didn’t know it then, but Nigel had his pockets and his stomach stuffed with ‘Marzine’. He was taking no chances!

There was even more equipment to be transferred this time. In addition to Alex’s camera gear, there was Nigel’s recording apparatus which included a selection of microphones (gun mike, radio mike, personal mikes) the recorder, a walkie-talkie, and assorted cables. Ian Nicolson and his crew Donald and Sandra McSween, were already awake, and helping to stow the gear. We headed next for Silver Sula.

Jean and John Stenhouse welcomed us aboard with the best of all welcomes, the smell of frying bacon. The launch departed taking Peter and Derek across to the commodore’s yacht Arcturus to film the starting gun, and Charles and his sound recordist Lex McDonald set up their equipment on Silver Sula to film Magnus Magnusson, our commentator, describing the start of the class one boats.

The whole bay was now filled with boats under way, some making last minute tuning adjustments, some making trial runs at different ends of the starting line.

Minutes only to the starting gun, Silver Sula circled closely round the back of the class one yachts as they made their last run for the line. The seconds ticked away.

‘Reducing speed, there’s the marked dinghy about a hundred yards ahead.’ The leaders are closing with the line. A little more throttle, 75 yards, 60, – ‘run camera, mark it’, Tobermory Race, scene B 12, take 1’.

‘Cue Magnus’.

The race was on, and four cameras were eating up film at a frightening speed. So, with the eights leading class one into the east Kyle, Dick Johnstone, trying to find his sea-legs on Christina (and taking some of the finest sailing pictures I have ever seen), Magnus enthusing over the breath-taking beauty of the scene, and classes two and three preparing for their starting guns, I think this is an appropriate point to fill in some of the background to the filming of the 1968 Tobermory Race.

I suppose it’s only natural that the idea of filming the Tobermory should have been uppermost in my mind for so many years. Being in the film business, and a keen sailor, the two had to come together some time!

In the last ten years or so I have had a variety of boats including a Wayfarer dinghy, an ex-International Star, a 19/24, a beautiful little twenty-foot clinker job, a Silhouette, and one or two I would rather forget! It was in the year of the 19/24 that I first wrote up a proposal for filming the race. I intended to enter my own boat carrying a film crew, and I had some preliminary discussions with the Clyde Cruising Club secretary, Geoff Duncan in Alex Pearce’s house in Helensburgh.

However, it was not to be. We were committed to the limit in the film unit that year, and the camera crews were just not available.

Some years and some boats later I met Ian Nicolson. We met under very appropriate circumstances, although in a sense we were on opposite sides of the fence. Ian had been asked to do a survey on a boat I was selling (that beautiful little clinker job), and in a hopeless attempt to distract his attention from minor things like wood-rot, nail-sickness, and deck-leaks (which he seemed to be obsessed with) I chatted away to him about my ideas on filming the Tobermory Race. He waxed eloquent with enthusiasm.

‘It would make a marvellous film,’ he said, lifting a nail out with his finger and thumb. ‘All these lovely boats crowding through the Narrows, spinnakers billowing, superb scenery.’

He waved the nail about in the air, his eyes glittering behind his spectacles. ‘The Kyles, Loch Fyne, the Dhorus Mhor, there isn’t another race like it in the whole world.’

‘The Tobermory is unique!’

I was delighted to find such an enthusiastic supporter even although his survey report knocked a hundred pounds off the price of my beautiful little clinker job.

But my colleagues in the film unit were much less enthusiastic.

‘Yachting isn’t a spectator sport, people would get bored.’

‘You cannot possibly hold the average viewer’s interest in a lot of boats sailing for half an hour.’

‘It takes more than pretty pictures to make a film.’ And so on and on and on. There was much sense in what they said.

It would be only too easy to make a film which would delight yachtsmen, but this film would be seen by people who had no special interest in boats, and somehow it would have to be made both interesting and entertaining to the layman.

So I started to work on a script.

It may seem odd to start writing a script for something as unpredictable as a yacht race, but it is this uncertainty which makes a working outline all the more essential. A strong framework must be laid down first which will ensure the final shape of the film, a framework which is still sufficiently flexible to accommodate the unexpected, because very often it is the unexpected that makes the real story.

The basic outline was fairly straightforward.

The first leg of the race would be treated in the style of an outside broadcast, with the commentator describing the progress of the race rather like a sports commentator, but for the second leg, he would go aboard one of the competing yachts, and in a sense become part of the race himself. Thinking of the non-sailing viewer, who would only be confused by the handicapping system, I decided to set up a private contest between two evenly matched boats so that regardless of their eventual placings, the viewer could follow the progress of these two boats within the overall race.

In contrast, it would be essential to have a camera on one of the fastest boats, preferably an eight metre that was determined to win.

Ian Nicolson had already agreed to take a film unit on St. Mary, so the first problem was to find a suitable ‘opponent’ for him.

I arranged a meeting with the C.C.C. committee, and we got together to thrash out some of the many practical problems which had to be solved. I am indebted to the committee for their invaluable assistance. I must especially mention Cdr. Mowatt, Ralph Dundas, Ian Young, Geoff Duncan and Robin Taylor. Their many helpful suggestions went a long way towards the ultimate success of the film.

When I asked for a possible candidate to race against Ian Nicolson, several suggestions were made and rejected for one reason or another, and then someone said, ‘What about David Rombach? He’s got a fine bearded face, easily recognised, and a good contrast to Ian, and his ketch Lola will be about the same handicap.’

I don’t know who first thought of David, but I am convinced a casting director couldn’t have done better!

Getting a camera on board an eight metre was going to be more difficult, but Robin Taylor said: ‘Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’

I also wanted a very large motor cruiser to make a steady platform for another camera unit and our commentator during the first leg of the race. Again Robin said: ‘Leave it with me.’

Within a few days he was on the phone: ‘Hugh Stenhouse will take your crew on his cruiser Beambrook and Kenny Gall is agreeable to taking one cameraman on his eight metre Christina. Hugh Morrison is going all the way to Tobermory in his launch Jinji and will make himself available should you need a very fast boat.

The phone rang again: ‘This is John Stenhouse. Hugh tells me you are filming on Beambrook. You would be better on my boat Silver Sula. She has a deeper bite in the water and is less inclined to roll.’

I tried to persuade Kenny Gall to take a sound recordist as well as a cameraman, but he remained firm.

‘Christina will be one of the fastest boats in the race. She will be competing with identical, equally fast eights and even one extra bod on board is going to be a handicap. In any case there just won’t be room.’ As I was just as keen as he was that Christina should be first boat into Tobermory, I had to concede that he had a point!

The original plan of filming a close race between Lola and St. Mary was knocked abruptly on the head when St. Mary hit a brick in the Kyles. And then again on that dark Monday morning at Crinan, as though determined to prove that the first grounding was no mere fluke, St. Mary well and truly planted herself on that long, shallow spine that projects from the Black Rock. However, the double misfortune made Ian Nicolson all the more determined to push St. Mary to the limit.

The race looked slightly different now from the point of view of our three competitors, so a slight adjustment had to be made to the shape of the film. The emphasis was now on one boat out in front (Christina), fighting hard to stay in front, another boat away astern of the fleet (St. Mary), striving to get back into the race, and somewhere in the middle our third boat Lola with that relaxed philosopher David Rombach thoroughly enjoying his cruise, and incidentally, passing on to Magnus something of the magic of sailing.

The weather throughout the race was almost too kind to us. Not a drop of rain from start to finish, hazy warm sunshine, ideal for colour filming, making our job much easier than it might have been. But I must confess that I was slightly disappointed by the weather conditions! I would have welcomed a bit of variation during the race. A little more wind, perhaps the tide a bit nearer springs, some rain (not much, just a little). In short, conditions a little more typical of the West Coast, the varying conditions that make the West Coast what it is. Having said that, I have a feeling that if I ever film a yacht race again I will regret that I said that!

(From Clyde Cruising Club Journal, 1969)

The 1968 Tobermory Race fleet at Crinan.
George Gibb, CCC Journal, 1969

THE BOAT-SPOTTER’S GUIDE

Following the dimensions = designer/ builder. Interestingly, we believe only two glass reinforced plastic boats featured, at least in the film.

It would be wonderful if additions and corrections could be added in the “Leave a Reply” box below – rather buried, sorry, within the “categories” and “tags”.

The main cast:

Lola, 200C, bermudan ketch, owner David Rombach, 30ft lwl, 38.7ft loa, J. Paine Clark/ W. King & Sons, Burnham-on-Crouch, 1925.

St. Mary, 169C, bermudan ketch, helmsman Ian Nicolson, 25ft lwl, 35ft loa, Ian Nicolson/ Arden Yacht Co., Helensburgh, 1961.

Christina of Cascais (ex Christina, ex Ilderim), K16, International 8-Metre, owners Kenny Gall & Peter Fairley, Tore Holm/ Abrahamssons Båtvarv, Ramsö, Sweden, 1936.

Arcturus (ex The Cruiser), Committee Vessel, owner Ian Park Young, O.B.E., 33.8 lwl, 43.5 loa, A.E. Gardner/ Williams & Parkinson, Deganwy, 1935.

The players:

00:24

Baltic style sloop (45sqm Blink?)

00:28

Pale green hulled sloop. ?

00:30

A Vertue setting ensign, with interesting sloop or cutter to starboard probably not taking part in the race.

00:37

The William Fife International 8-Metre, Vagrant II, rafted  to Dirk II, Fife Sr?? (II)/ built Kiel, Germany, 1921.

01:17

Light blue hard chine sloop (?) with red/white striped jib.

01:21

Small white hulled sloop under power concealing very low freeboard dark (green?) hulled boat at anchor, which is revealed at 01:28 (15sqm Vixen?), with white double ender behind.

UPDATE 3 October 2013: white sloop identified by her present owner, Keith Clark, as the Honeybee Class, Crunluath, designed by A.K. “Sandy” Balfour, and built by Boag of Largs in 1965. See also 15:25, and “comments”/ “leave a reply” section below.

01:31

White International 8-Metre, ?

01:40

Very low freeboard dark hulled boat at anchor again, and revealing the white double ender behind as 829C, the Gauntlet Class, Isla Rose, H.G. May/ Berthon, Lymington, 1949.

01:43

International 8-Metre, K16, Christina of Cascais‘s mainsail being raised.

01:50

Green sloop or cutter (info to follow).

01:54

On board Vagrant II rafted to Dirk II and probably the International 8-Metre Cruiser/Racer Tinto II, Archibald MacMillan/ Fairlie Yacht slip, 1957.

02:00

Ian Nicolson (of St. Mary)

02:09

David Rombach (of Lola)

02:18

On board Christina.

03:10

The apparently leading boat = V18, Ivanhoe (info to follow).

03:24

Back aboard Christina.

Light blue hull (6-metre?).

03:34

On board the Committee Boat, Arcturus with behind: Judith (ex Rowan II, tan sails), Ewing McGruer/ McGruer & Co Ltd., 1929; 106C, Elina (ex Kyrah), 21.5ft lwl, 29.1ft loa, John A. Lay or Ley, Scarborough, 1952.

03:42

Right to left: 1044, Boomerang, Brittany Class, 25.2 lwl, 33.5 loa, J. Laurent Giles/ Hugh McLean & Sons Ltd, Gourock, 1955 ; 7CR K4, Norella, Int. 7-Metre Cruiser/Racer, Maitland H. Murray/ Morris & Lorimer Ltd., Sandbank, 1967; white GRP boat probably Siolta (40C), Excalibur 36 (GRP). E.G. Van de Stadt/ Southern Ocean Supplies Ltd., Bournemouth, 1966 ; International 8-Metre, N34, Turid II (ex Fröya), Bjarne Aas, Fredrikstad, Norway, 1939.

03:53

7CR K1, International 7-Metre Cruiser/Racer Erlin Mor, (probably V.E.B. Yachtwerft, Berlin, c.1966)

03:58

206C, Minstrel Maid, 28ftlwl, 36ft loa, C.A. Nicholson/ Clare Lallow, Cowes, 1953 (to 8mR Scantlings); International 8-Metre, K27, If, Bjarne Aas, Fredrikstad, Norway, 1930.

04:07

Which 8? (Banks sails and black rubber dinghy).

04:17

On board Christina.

8CR K7, Tinto II (see above); International 8-Metre, K32, Wye, C.E. Nicholson/ Camper & Nicholsons Ltd., 1935.

04:37

8 which?

04:42 Which 8? (Banks sails and black rubber dinghy).

04:51

3^rd boat = Boomerang (see above).

04:54

Back aboard Christina.

05:43

The eights approaching the Burnt Isles, Kyles of Bute.

04:49

St. Mary & Lola, Nicolson and Rombach.

06:06

On board St. Mary.

06:18

Unidentified small dark hulled boat; South Coast One Design, SC52, Zonda, C.A. Nicholson/ Camper & Nicholsons, c.1959; 19C, Shireen, Clyde 19/24 Class, Alfred Mylne/ McGruer, Rutherglen, 1903.

06:26

? (white hull varnished top strake).

06:32

? (green hull).

07:00

Red International 8-Metre, Severn II of Ardmaleish (ex Severn), Mylne/ Bute Slip Dock, 1934; green spi with two yellow stripes = International 8-Metre Cruiser/Racer, 8CR K18 Altricia, James McGruer/ McGruer & Co, 1965; red spi with two white stripes = 8CR K7 Tinto II (qv).

07:14

International 8-Metre, 8 N26, Silja, J. Anker/ Anker & Jensen, Asker, Norway, 1930.

07:24 = Wye spi trouble.

07:37

Internationa 8-Metre, Turid II (qv).

07:46

Tinto II from Christina.

07:57

206C, Minstrel Maid (qv) (followed by Vixen?)

09:03

Isla Rose? (qv)

7:58

444 = ?

14, T24 Class Caitlin, designed by Guy Thompson (GRP).

10:07

8K32, Wye (qv)

10:18

8-Metre Turid II’s broken mast.

11:44

8K27, If (qv)

12:05

8N26, Silja (qv).

8K30, Severn II of Ardmaleish (qv).

12:21

Christina finishing Ardrishaig.

13:09

14, T24 Class Caitlin (qv).

13:15 & 13:24

? (White sloop, transome rudder).

13:33

McGruer 8 C/R? Altricia?

13:35

Unidentified anchored yachts.

13:42

8-Metres in the Ardrishaig sea lock, Crinan Canal. Middle, red, 8-Metre is Severn II of Ardmaleish.

14:53

Motoring though the Crinan Canal aboard Christina.

15:21

Unidentified transom hung rudder sloop c30ft,  white with blue deck.

UPDATE 3 October 2013: Honeybee Class Crunluath – see 01:21

15:30

Panning to 8’s moored in Crinan basin.

18:02

Boomerang (qv)

18:04

6K52, International 6-Metre, Mena, Camper & Nicholsons, 1946.

18:15

Siolta (qv).

18:37

1044C, Boomerang (qv).

20:20

Tinto II (qv).

20:34

Unident McGruer 8C/R, probably Altricia (qv).

20:35

22C, ex International 6-Metre, Saskia of Rhu (launched as Saskia III), Alfred Mylne/ Bute Slip Dock, 1935. (Unusually, still in class with Lloyds at this time).

20:39

From on board Christina.

Yacht to off her starboard quarter with dark hull, long bow overhang and substantial coachroof most probably Sibyl of Cumae (ex Ensay, 36 Linear Rater), William Fife Jr/ Wm Fife & Son, 1902.

20:42

Next to windward, a Scottish Islander. Which?

25:42

Silja from Christina with Altricia in between.

27:45

The gaffer crossing tacks with Lola is Shireen (qv).

29:15

73C, Macaria, 34ft loa, Dickie of Tarbert, 1922.

29:25

Thought to be Gunna, 21 Tons (Thames) Bermudan Ketch, James McGruer/ McGruer & Co. Ltd., 1946

29:28 ? (see 33:15)

29:35

789C, Black Raven, 24ft lwl, 32ft loa, Morgan Giles, Teignmouth, 1925. & Unidentified varnished sloop.

32:00

Arcturus, committee vessel (qv).

32:10

V18, Ivanhoe (info to follow)

32:12

69C, Islay, 22ft lwl, 28.5 loa, A. Bellingham & F. Shepherd/ C. Cooper (Conyer) Ltd., Conyer, 1936.

32:56

70C, Venture, 22ft lwl, 29.5 loa, Albert Strange/ A. Wooden, Oulton Broad, 1920.

33:05

Unidentified Stella Class sloop.

33:15

23C, Sea King? (see also 29:28)

33:44

Varnished sloop 184C, Romela, 24 lwl, 33ft loa, James McGruer/ McGruer & Co Ltd., 1949.

33:55

1703, Allgo (ex Crackerjack), 24.3/35, Alan H Buchanan/ Weatherhead & Blackie, Port Seton, 1960.

IM

G.L. Watson loved the waters of the Clyde and West Coast of Scotland. Martin Black’s biography G.L. Watson – The Art and Science of Yacht Design contains over 300 images, many taken on these waters in earlier days. It can be purchased online here.