The Scottish Yachting Archives

William Collier and David Gray

I’m just back from a fascinating visit to the Scottish Yachting Archives, run by my old friends Dr William Collier and Antony Harrison.

My association with William and Antony goes back over thirty years, to the time they acquired the business of G L Watson & Company Limited. The founder, George Lennox Watson, pioneered the idea of a pure yacht design company not associated with a working boat yard. This meant that you would get a well engineered design that could then be taken to any of the ship yards and boat builders operating around the Firth of Clyde for tendering. By contrast, builders such as the Fifes would expect a client to have them carry out the whole operation, from initial discussions to launching your yacht from the muddy shore at Fairlie.

Despite these different approaches there was no hostility between Watson and his contemporary, the third William Fife, the latter frequently building the former’s designs and both no doubt benefiting from the other’s ideas. There have been numerous articles written about the relations among one of these brilliant men and the third member of Scotland’s great boat design trilogy, Alfred Mylne, who was trained by Watson and left to form his own company, again a pure design agency, at the age of twenty four. I and others have written about this elsewhere; my own view is that the idea of conflict between Watson and Mylne has been at least partly stirred up by some of those who followed, to nobody’s credit. While Mylne lived until the late 1950s, his mentor Watson worked himself to death at the age of 51 in 1904, so there have been no living witnesses to speak for him. ‘S e saoghal beag a h’ ann, it’s a small world, as the Gaels say, and my own view is that there would have been enough work to keep all of these fellows too busy to spend time squabbling. The good news is that their successors are on the best of terms and it’s not true to say, if it ever was, that “Mylnes don’t drink with Watsons”, as the lead photograph shows.

William and his opposite number at Mylnes, David Gray, share the ambition of keeping the surviving records and artefacts safe for posterity, despite the truth that such things are expensive to preserve and there’s almost no chance of profit from old drawings. Having said this, many of those plans are capable of producing fast, safe, wholesome boats, as we saw exactly a year ago at the Fife Regatta, when Hubert Stagnol launched his lovely recreation of Watson’s Red, the first one design in the world, into Scottish waters at Portavadie.

Red at the Fife Regatta, photo from Marc Turner

The archives also contain, at the more extreme end, a few designs that were never built at all, perhaps because the building techniques and materials then available couldn’t have made them strong enough. There have already been a few recreations of boats actually built, German Sonderklasse and American carpetbaggers being examples, using modern epoxy resin techniques. While Watson preferred to concentrate on sea keeping ability, the Fife archives contain several enticing possibilities for those seeking pure fun.

So, to the Scottish Yachting Archives, located in one of Glasgow’s many cultural hubs, an old industrial building that is now home to many in the arts and creative sectors, next to the historic Forth and Clyde canal.

I was astonished at the sheer volume of materials, from actual drawings, working notes and specifications, to builder’s half models and client’s full models, to volumes of records, correspondence and the occasional fragment of an actual vessel. Families have donated their albums of photographs, while my friends have examined auction catalogues at home and abroad to locate and bid for anything relevant. Surprise finds have included a model, made for an aristocratic client, found in a sale of agricultural machinery in Switzerland.

The unit in the north of central Glasgow is very much a working hub, rather than a potential museum that people can drop into, so the more obvious public benefits will be seen in what emerges in due course from the analysis and research that I saw going on. One aspect of this will be a series of published works on aspects of yacht and boat design and construction in the Scottish golden years, for which purpose my friends have established a publishing imprint. This has led me to the best bit of serendipity to come my way in years!

I bought a Scottish Islands Class yacht, designed by Alfred Mylne, when in my twenties, as an affordable way to get afloat, but ended up keeping her for over forty years, during which time such little ships acquired the status of classics. Towards the end of 2010 I conceived the idea of writing a history of the class and to this end set up a blog, Scottish Islands Class, which in turn led to an initial draft of a book three years later.

It then took a further decade to follow the leads that arrived in online comments, before I was in a position to start propositioning established publishers. The results were in virtually all cases the total absence of even an acknowledgment. A couple of very small operations did reply, negatively but at least politely. Learning of William’s ambition to start an imprint was therefore a piece of unimaginable good fortune, especially when he read the text and decided to go with it.

On the face of things, the Scottish Islanders may seem to be something of a niche interest. Only a dozen were built and there are few survivors from among the early sailors, although three nonagenarians shared their memories. Because of this I have broadened the scope.

The work starts with something of a social history of some of Glasgow’s families at play a hundred years ago, then takes us through their struggles as the survivors returned to sailing after the war and finally moves into our times, when a new generation now cherish these remarkably sea worthy and fast little yachts as basic cruisers. I’ve added in a few west coast anecdotes and sketches for good measure. If I’ve sparked your interest, please feel free to send me a message by commenting here.