More about the joys of Skiffing (not the Lonny Donegan type)

Imagine sporting events taking place with hundreds of participants, thousands of spectators, police and ambulance people about but no arrests and no injuries! In Scotland! Welcome to the World of Scottish Coastal Rowing.

Ullapool 2013

Imagine over 400 rowers in a total of 75 traditional rowing boats racing from Dumbarton to the Glasgow city centre, again nobody got arrested or hurt, apart from a few blisters! Welcome to Clydebuilt Festival 2017, due to be repeated on 15 September 2018.

Anster's finest at full stretch

There was even time to launch couple of new traditionally built boats. Glasgow's great Lord Provost Eva Bolander, herself a rower, wearing the gold chain.

Spot the mystery man in the crowd

From quiet beginnings a few years ago skiffing has grown and grown, been exported world-wide, become the major keep-fit exercise for thousands of people, many of whom never imagined they would ever take up an oar, linked communities through common interest and gentle, occasionally strenuous, but always good-natured competition, with virtually all funding raised within the communities.

Perhaps because we don't make constant demands for public funding, don't use carbon fibre, don't buy our boats from the boating industry, have fun, row to coastal pubs, have picnics on islands, invite strangers along to join us, we are virtually ignored by government agencies such as Scottish Rowing, the self-proclaimed "governing body for rowing in Scotland". The annual subscription to that outfit, with its team of sport administrators and experts, would be twice the total annual budget of my home club, Isle of Seil Coastal Rowing! No thanks.

The top image is of our crew battling it out in Ullapool at the skiffieworlds in 2013, a few weeks after we launched our Selkie, an event hosted by the always innovative Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club.

Musical skiff Sephira in the foreground

We were represented at the 2016 event in Northern Ireland with the help of some wonderful rowers imported specially from the United States, although our resources didn't stretch to taking the Selkie over.

We are now working towards the 2019 Worlds in Stranraer and hope to be there in force with the skiff Selkie and a mixed crew of Seilachs and friends from near and far.

Clarification for younger folk, Lonny Donegan did skiffling, not skiffing!

Unrecorded History

On a point near an abandoned croft, the history of the ordinary folk is unwritten.

The Skiffieworlds at Ullapool 2013

Scottish Coastal Rowing in St Ayles skiffs is probably the fastest growing community activity in Scotland at the present time and for very good reasons. Everyone can be involved in some way, whether or not they want to do any actual rowing, starting with raising some cash, providing building space, constructing the boat or producing the supporting graphics and documentary hype that get people aware.

There’s  a great deal already written about skiffing at www.scottishcoastalrowing.org and on this blog here: The Seil skiff regatta and here: Rules - What are they for? Right now the weather is too hot for adding to it, so I’m just posting some images from Ullapool, thanks to Firth of Clyde Coastal Rowing Club, as sadly my camera was drowned on day one.

Save Sephira and Help the Whales

Scottishboating is taking a boatman’s holiday at the skiffieworlds in Ullapool, where the lovely Highland port has been transformed into a world class, world-beating venue for the first ever St Ayles skiff world championships. More about this will be posted in due course, but right now there’s an urgent call for help that won’t wait beyond Saturday. 

Among the thirty or so skiffs that are here is Sephira the The Musical Ark, brought here by her inspirational builder and designer Michael Brolly. Sephira needs to be metaphorically bailed out to the tune of $3,000 via Kickstarter, for reasons I'll try to explain briefly.

When I first heard about the Musical Ark I thought it was pretty daft, but after listening to Michael’s talk last night I realised that there’s a very serious side to his madness. We have to do something to raise awareness of the damage that underwater noise can and is doing to our marine mammals, who navigate by sonar. Art can be a political tool and Sephira does this in a lovely ethical way. 

It is already proven that noise travels huge distances underwater. It not only disorientates creatures such as porpoises, dolphins and whales; it can actually destroy their hearing. Doing this deliberately is akin to blinding a human being and just as illegal under the Habitats Directive.  

Of course we’re told it’s essential for naval ships and submarines to pollute the sea with noise in the interests of the various nations whose politicians’ egos have reached a certain size. What is totally unacceptable is for noise to be used for the express purpose of scaring and damaging marine mammals purely for commercial purposes, such as keeping seals from fish farms, when other non-damaging (but more expensive) remedies are available.

Michael’s project has the capacity to add to our knowledge of how far different sounds travel underwater, as it seems likely that it will be combined with other research currently going on around the west coast of Scotland.

For anyone wanting to follow this subject through I recommend having a look at Dr Booth’s thesis, accessible here:  St Andrews University Repository