The Scottish Islanders

 Get your copy from www.shop.yachtarchive.scot !

The Scottish Islanders

 

Above is a fantastic photograph of the fleet racing in the last major event before war put a stop to such things. When I was putting my book together, I was delighted at the support from companies such as Beken, who were content for me to use a portrait image of my own Islander, Stroma, without payment. This image isn't in the book, it came from someone whose forebears had purchased a copy at the time. Perhaps we'll eventually do a reprint.

The feedback from purchasers has been very positive, also I've been getting sent material, such as the photograph, also anecdotes about the boats and their families, which is making the whole exercise feel very worth while. There's a lot of social history that deserves to be recorded, not just regarding the older, rather patrician families, but also just about the characters who made the west coast and its little bays and havens a lot of fun. I'm thinking of men like Boyd Keen, who made it into the book, and the recently departed and much loved Cubby MacKinnon, about whom a book, Mistress and Commander, appeared a few years ago.

Seriously, the book is quite a limited print run, and it's selling quite well, via social media only, because the margin between cost and retail price rules out major bookshops. So, if you want a copy, or know someone whom you think might enjoy it, you can find the online shop at

www.shop.yachtarchive.scot

The First Review is out!

 

It's great to see the first review, with a couple more in the pipeline. Also, readers are getting back and seem to be enjoying my efforts. The online shop now has its own dedicated website, so to buy a copy use this link:

shop.yachtarchive.scot

The Scottish Islanders

 

Following my post about the Scottish Yachting Archives, I’m writing to let people know that my book, The Scottish Islanders, is now in print.

The Scottish Islanders were a fleet of identical sailing yachts launched from 1929. Designed, built and organised to ensure absolutely level competition, winning was entirely down to boat handling skills and cunning. In the years before the war they were sailed by some of Glasgow’s best known business families, who abandoned their home comforts each weekend to race against each other, regardless of the weather, sometimes the only fleet seen out on the Firth of Clyde. Their antics excited interest far beyond the yachting fraternity and were eagerly covered in the national press.

I acquired Stroma, number Four in the Scottish Islands Class in September 1976, and over the next four decades kept her mainly on the west coast, before finally passing her on to new owners just a few years ago. Over that period I gathered a huge amount of information and over the last twenty years or so I’ve been putting together a book on them, based on research into the interesting group of families who first owned them, reports from their descendants and my own experiences of sailing in one. For nearly a hundred years the Islanders have been a feature on the west coast. They still regularly turn out for West Highland Week.

The first part of the book has a lot of social history and stories about some remarkable people, such as Udy Russell, a pioneer of women on water. There are occasional excursions abroad, when the Scots did battle with America’s best in Oyster Bay, outside New York. This section ends with a look at the return of the survivors postwar.

The book then moves on to tell a story of decline, when the yacht racing fraternity moved away from wooden boats, but the Scottish Islanders survived in the hands of people who just wanted to sail and who appreciated craftsmanship, style and seaworthiness. They had become cheap enough for young people to buy and use for coastal cruises. The survival of most of the fleet has provided colourful tales of exploits and excursions, as new generations of sailors, very different from the original group, continue to discover the fun of exploring the west coast of Scotland, with the boats still winning races and always turning heads.

I had nearly given up hope of finding a publisher until my old friends Dr William Collier and Antony Harrison told me that they had set up the Scottish Yachting Archives, an operation dedicated to ensuring that the history of sailing on the west coast is preserved. To date they've acquired the records of the William Fife dynasty and the G L Watson design business, a total of several thousand drawings and artefacts, all now preserved in their unit in central Glasgow. Part of their operation will involve publishing, and I’m delighted to report that my book is their first venture.

I'm also delighted that the Rockfield Centre in Oban has agreed to host the book launch in the cafe in the afternoon of Saturday 28th October.

In the meantime, copies of the book can be got via shop.yachtarchive.scot.

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.

Survival of an old Lady - Chapter 4 - she swims again

Stroma's old mast and sails were in very poor condition and I had decided at the start of the project to replace both, because I intended to sail without an engine and needed the sail power to be totally reliable.

Scottish Islands ODs were originally fitted with engines, either a single cylinder Watermota or a Coventry flat twin and the Class had a rule that if you didn't fit an engine you had to have a dummy propellor and carry equivalent weight. In fact these early engines weighed very little, roughly the same as a decent bower anchor and chain. Certainly even the smallest of modern diesels would risk unbalancing the boat and I had no intention of going back to a single cylinder petrol motor in view of the fire risk and the fact that kept in the damp space beneath the cockpit sole it would never start.

I ordered a mast from a major, well-known company and was extremely disappointed when it arrived. Rather than the pear-shaped profile of a traditional mast this was simply a round, tapered stick and as a result seemed very thin at the top. Fortunately a friend was looking for a mast and when he didn't agree with my assessment this first attempt went to a good home and I recovered some of the cost. Sadly it broke a few years later during a race in blustery conditions.

After taking advice I found the wonderful Alastair Garland, who needed absolutely no instruction from me to produce a spar that was a work of art, as well as extremely strong. 

The new sails came from the legendary Gayle Heard of Tollesbury, whom I already knew, as he had already made a suit for Sonas and a spritsail for my wherry.

Stroma was rigged, as Sonas had been, by Iain Gillies, the former head rigger at McGruers and a man of great skill and humour who became a good friend.

It would be tiresome to recount all the remaining steps up to September 2003, when Stroma finally hit the water again. I'll just say that as the launching date draws ever nearer the list of undone tasks becomes longer and longer.

It was a great relief to find that the weight of the materials I had added to give strength and customise the interior had exactly balanced the saving that resulted from having a hull that didn't absorb water, with the result that Stroma floated level and precisely to her original marks.

Survival of an old Lady - Chapter Three

With Stroma near home in Argyll I could speed up progress by working at weekends rather than weekdays when the normal job allowed.

The first task was building the cabin sides, from marine plywood that was later given a good outer surface of mahogany from a beautiful big plank that I had come across.

Decisions had to be taken about how closely to follow the design. Alfred Mylne had drawn curved corners at the front end of the cabin, but McGruers had built them sharp, starting a debate on which was authentic, with Mylne winning.

The cabin roof proved challenging with the curvature flattening forward.

Quality control inspection

Sonas in the background, being worked on for the new owner

Cabin structure nearly complete

The original main beam with the Official Number was kept

Reunited with her keel

Ready for fine joinery work

As work proceeded individual components became more intricate and demanding to make, but also more fun.

I spent a lot of time wondering how to replace the original rudder stock trunk, which seemed to have started out in life as a piece of iron drainpipe. It had rusted almost through and could have sunk the ship in seconds had it collapsed underway. I couldn't find a satisfactory replacement and was worried about the tendency of plastics to behave in strange ways afar prolonged exposure to water. Eventually I decided to make a tube from thin staves of Western Red Cedar, barrel-fashion, coated with woven roving and then protected from any glancing blows by a stout ash timber glued on the forward side.

partial bulkheads replace original iron posts

chart storage

the correct way to build a watertight hatch, like a Roman fort with two walls

to be continued... Click here

Survival of an old lady - Chapter Two - ends in evil thoughts!

The first step in any restoration is to discover how much you've let yourself in for. Stripping off the deck revealed that most of the deck beams were either burst or rotten.

The stem was in a disastrous condition. It would have been made from a piece of oak selected for its curve, but the yacht was damaged at Hunters Quay sometime soon after the War when a ferry ran into her and a couple of feet had been replaced at the top. The original and new sections were both seriously rotten, quite a common problem when you consider how susceptible oak is to fresh water.

There's a special sort of archaeology involved in rescuing old boats. While received wisdom says that the ancients always produced dovetailed joints we found that the deck beams had in fact been lodged in notches in the shelf with each held in place by one iron nail. The elm frames would have been steamed and pretty hot when put in, so it wasn't surprising to find that quite a few had failed to find the little sockets in the hog that had been made for them.

It was obvious that the stem would need to be replaced. To keep the hull in shape I decided first to repair the beam shelf and reinstate the forward deck beams. Here is a sequence of images showing my late pal Duncan working on the rotten shelf and our efforts at scarfing in the new sections. A couple of months later I sat beside Duncan in hospital and he made me promise that I'd make sure "she'd swim again".

 

While doing this we made and fitted the forward deck beams.

Port side shelf done, starboard glued up

After the forward stem was removed the hull was kept in shape with a system of wooden blocks to keep the planking in line tensioned with Spanish windlasses.

Using the old stem as a template I made the new one alongside, from clear Douglas Fir laminated with epoxy.

Attention turned to the area at the foot of the stern post, where removal of planking revealed that the post itself was split. I made a new one. Likewise the transom had been badly damaged at Irvine and was replaced. Unable to find a suitable chunk of mahogany to handle the radius the new one was laminated from marine plywood.

Up to this point I had hoped that I could complete the job without taking Stroma off her ballast keel, but it was now clear that this would be necessary.

Excavations at this point showed that the hog was badly rotten, also the floors, while not totally rotten, had numerous shakes. It's an interesting speculation that most of these probably occurred soon after Stroma was launched in May 1929, as they had been built from oak crooks selected on the basis of the shape being approximately correct. I have read that members of the McGruer family would scour the woods looking for suitable pieces for this purpose.

It was going to be impossible to find suitable pieces of oak to build a new hog and floors, even had I wanted to. Availability of top quality marine plywood meant that they could be built to a much higher strength and durability than had been possible first time round. Here, the patient has just been lifted off her keel and the rudder dropped out.

The keel is carefully shored to keep it in shape. Originally she had eight bolts, positioned diagonally, worked from iron, which remained embedded in the lead after the sections through the hog had rusted away. The ones you can see are four of five bronze bolts added later, the fifth one being a little short fellow though the front. I was later to stand on the keel and drill another eight holes, staggered opposite the original ones, just because I felt I should. It was an interesting exercise, which included me being thrown off once when the drill bit caught in the lead. The end result is that Stroma now has a ridiculous number of bolts.

Here are some of the new floors in place.

And the new hog and stern knee.

And finally replanked.

At this stage, with new carlins and all the deck beams done, Stroma was beginning to come alive again.

At this point I began to have evil thoughts about giving the whole ship a sheathing of woven glass roving and epoxy. I won't write a long essay about the pros and cons of doing this, as it has been discussed endlessly, usually be people who have no experience of doing it, but may have come across some of the disastrous fibreglass and polyester jobs that were done in the 1950s and 1960s. My friends in the Freundeskreis Klassiker Yachten even have a name for the process, which translates as a dead man's winding sheet.

After very careful reading of all the literature I could find, plus discussing with my boatbuilder friend who had at that stage built about sixty boats (now up to about eighty) with no problems, the decision was made. My reasoning was that having basically replaced everything that in the old boat could absorb water and swell with materials that couldn't the gain in strength and stability was worth the expense and work involved. While the yacht was off her keel the coating could be taken round the hog, avoiding a major reason for not doing it.

The hull was now careened to get proper access and the work done over a very hard and messy weekend under the professional supervision of my good friend Richard.

Now, fully put back together again and much stronger than when she was built, I decided to bring Stroma a hundred miles nearer home in Argyll to get on with the work of reconstructing the cabin, cockpit and interior to Alfred Mylne's original design.

 to be continued... here Chapter Three