Halt the destruction of Argyll's most precious asset

At a meeting of the planning committee on 11 March Argyll & Bute Council approved an application by a local landowner who resides in far-away Devon for the speculative building of two large houses on the sensitive area of open countryside on the East side of the Kames peninsula, in an area designated, according to the Council's own published local plan, as an "Area of Panoramic Quality." This happened at the same time as Visit Scotland published its contribution to the Surprise Yourself 2011 campaign, in which the scenery of Argyll is a major feature.

In terms of the local plan areas such as this are protected by policy ENV 10, which states "Development in, or adjacent to, an Area of Panoramic Quality will be resisted where its scale, location or design will have a significant adverse impact on the character of the landscape unless it is demonstrated that any significant adverse effects on the quality for which the area has been designated are clearly outweighed by social and economic benefits of National or regional importance." The Council goes on to explain "The aim of this policy is to provide panoramically important landscapes in Argyll and Bute, with adequate protection against damaging development. ...These areas are important not only for their physical landforms and for the flora and fauna, which they support, but also for the environmental assets that they represent. These qualities could easily be destroyed or damaged by even a relatively small, insensitive development. They therefore must be protected."

This was the first permission to be granted on the Kames Peninsula since 1992, when one house was allowed on the basis of occupational need in the face of total opposition by the then Council's planning officers and strong objection from local residents. A factor was that the site was at least partially hidden behind a rocky knoll. In 2011 the planning policies have different numbers, but the wording remains basically the same. If anything people are probably more aware now than ever before of the value of our landscape, not just for enjoyment, but as an economic resource, in fact our main asset.

At the time I thought that the decision on 11 March was a local aberration, then I read in the Oban Times of 24 March that an application has been allowed for the construction of 22 new houses at Barran, Kilmore, a community of 32 existing houses. There the applicable planning policies were different but the result was the same, speculative development inflicted on a small community against its wishes and in apparent disregard of policies.

These decisions do share another factor, in that they are both within areas identified in the plan as "Potential Development Areas." These were introduced as a concept, I believe, because under previous plans it was virtually impossible for anyone to discover in advance which areas might be available for building purposes. The emphasis was to be on the word "potential", because the plan makes it clear that any development must still comply with the planning policies in force. It states that such sites are those where "opportunities may emerge during the plan period for infill, rounding-off, redevelopment or new development. Such opportunities are not currently fully resolved and issues may require to be overcome in these PDAs before development opportunities within the PDA area can be realised and be supported ..." Because this was taken at face value and so not perceived as a threat at the time it seems that many community councils did little or nothing to prevent these designations occurring.

What appears to be happening in practice is that instead of PDAs being viewed as only potentially developable the Council's planning officers and councillors are seeing them as areas where there is a positive presumption in favour of development and where planning constraints can be ignored. It's almost as if blanket planning permissions in principle have been granted, because in practice it seems that developers see PDAs as a green light and planning officers are readily persuaded to ignore the protection that sites such as Kames deserve. Perhaps PDA should stand for Please Develop Argyll.

Ordinary citizens cannot appeal against the granting of planning consent, but this doesn't mean that we can do nothing. We can try to persuade our councillors to understand the policies they are obliged to uphold and apply them fairly, not just in the interests of speculative developers. I have also set up an online petition, where those who feel as I do can easily add their signatures. It can be found at http://www.gopetition.com/petition/44163.html.

That time again

 

A week ago, under snow and hail, sailing seemed like madness. Today the boatyard phoned and asked if Stroma will be ready for launching on 1 April, so tomorrow I'll be over to take off the winter cover and decide how little I can get away with this year. 

As readers of my other blog will know (if you aren't reading it please click  here:- scottishislandsclass.blogspot.com ) I spent eight interesting years restoring Stroma after I recovered her from the Scottish Maritime Museum, to whom  I had  naively entrusted her. Since she was relaunched in 2003 I've freshened up the brightwork a couple of times, repainted the decks once and antifouled occasionally, but the topsides paint hasn't been redone. Since we don't have an engine, a toilet, electrics or even an onboard computer system there isn't a lot else to be done. By the way, I have spent time on the mast and rigging, which has to be on form as our only salvation in  all conditions and weathers. I'm absolutely determined that these won't let us down. There's no doubt that when you get an old boat back into prime condition very little needs to be done to keep her there, so I'm hoping I won't find any horrors tomorrow.

There's a strange sort of anxious anticipation that happens every year about now, triggered by days that are sunny but still cold, gentle breezes followed by dense mists (see photo above), boatyard smells of  paint, grease and tar, the skirls of dust and debris around the yard, the chattering of unfrapped hallyards on masts left up all winter by those engined folk who don't feel the need to care about  their ship's reliability under sail and most of all the totally legal highs obtained from inhaling the numerous solvents required in fitting-out (and much more expensive per millilitre than a fine malt, by the way), an odd mixture of approaching joy at getting back on the water, fear of the (to the older fellow) known or (to the younger) unknown hazards such as rocks, submerged debris and other horrors, even in well-kent waters, this anticipation the perfect counterpart of the end of season feelings of relief one feels at having brought an old lady through her eighty-somethingth year on the water mixed with the regret of surrendering up one's sport to approaching winter. 

Well, there we are, Stroma and I both a year older, our range a bit limited, but we'll be on the water in Argyll soon and at least one of us a bit more emotional each year we venture out together.

Red lives again

 

Great news for lovers of small boats everywhere comes from Britanny.

Chantier Hubert Stagnol has established a reputation for building replicas of classic designs, including Seabird and Fyne, both originally drawn by William Fife III in 1889. For his latest project Mr Stagnol is building a copy of Red, one of the first ever one-design class in the world. By a happy coincidence I recently wrote about the class and its descendants and my post can be viewed by clicking here:- The Clyde 17/19 foot class

At present I don't know what construction method has been chosen for the new Red, but Mr Stagnol's previous efforts have made good use of new technologies. The great thing about a rebuild of an old design is that by using modern materials and glues incredible strength can be built into the structure, ensuring longevity beyond the dreams of the designer. We know that our old masters were quick to embrace whatever technology was available, for example by incorporating metal frames and bracing in composite construction, and we can assume they would have seized the possibilities inherent in strip plank and epoxy construction. Despite their best efforts it remained the case that an owner who wished to remain competitive would have to commission a new yacht every couple of years, because his existing boat would have lost her rigidity. I've written about these issues in some detail on my other blog, www.scottishislandsclass.blogspot.com.

Looking at the half model, above, I suggest that Messrs G L Watson and Chantier Hubert Stagnol have come up with a winner. The hull looks very powerful and seaworthy, and it will need to be to carry that massive rig of the old Clyde luggers.

Of course the great thing about a one-design class has always been that the designer is liberated from a rating rule. As it happens I've also posted about this already, here:-  The designer unconstrained

It seems that nine of these boats were built originally, but none survive. Red seems exactly right for the sort of economical and social sailing that is coming into vogue these days, with classic meetings around the coasts and a general move away from plastic ugliness. It will be great if she soon has some sisters. In case you're tempted I've added both G L Watson and Chantier Hubert Stagnol to my links section.

Birthday of an old Lady

Music on the Wannsee, from a photo by Soenke Hucho

Sailing in another country can produce a lot of surprises. I've greatly enjoyed my visits to the Baltic and have also enjoyed showing our friends from Germany and Sweden what conditions are like in the West coast of Scotland.

Sometimes my excursions have been triggered by quite random events, such as the discovery of the materials in the Mitchell Library that led to the story of the Scottie, about which I wrote in an earlier post.

The Freundeskreis klassiche Yachten translates literally as the "Circle of Friends of classic Yachts, which seems to me a nicer name than "German Classic Yacht Society." Certainly their members have shown me great kindness and friendship, none more so than when I was invited to Berlin to celebrate the Scottie's 100th birthday. A film was produced about the celebrations, which they have now posted here:-  Scottie film

For the small minority of readers who don't understand German (or don't have google) I can offer a translation as follows:-

"The Berlin-based Illusion is now over 100 years old and there is now available a ten minute film with the title "100 year Illusion." The film describes the celebrations over the birthday of an old lady and has some wonderful sequences of the Illusion in action. We naturally want to present members of the Freundeskreis with a shortened and web-enabled version. The producer and cameraman for the original is Joachim Luehning, of ATV Hamburg and the internet version has been done by Jan Lohrengel.

Illusion has been a large part of Hans Heckmann's life. He's been enjoying this boat with countless sailors for over sixty years! Naturally this involvement with the yacht and her history makes up a large part of his life story, as told by the biographer Irene Wahle."

In researching this post I also came across a feature on the celebrations in 2005, as follows,

"Havel Klassik 2005

The competition was very gentle: short courses and lots of prizes, and this time the winner of the keelboat class was the old "seven lengths class" Illusion, ex Scottie, who was also a birthday girl, proudly celebrating her hundredth.

At the garden party one could totally relax. The excellent grill and the bar provided the ingredients for that.  So soothing and pleasant was the expert, live swing band  that everyone was able to chat effortlessly with old friends or quietly look at Soenke Hucho's exhibition of photographs.

On the Sunday the course from the Berlin Yacht Club took place under "Kaiser weather," beautiful sunshine. In her home port Illusion was celebrating her 100th birthday, with musicians from Glasgow in kilts. And again the question was asked, especially appropriate in this heat, are you actually wearing anything underneath?"

I don't want to spoil a lovely story, but if you look at the film you won't see a lot of kilts. I'll take mine next time, though, if I get another invitation.

Walt Simmons Christmas Wherry

ashore on Right Island

My yellow boat, the Kelpie, is a Christmas Wherry designed by Walt Simmons of Duck Trap Woodworking in Maine. She's by far the most versatile and sea-worthy little vessel for her size that I have ever come across.

I discovered Walt's designs in the pages of Woodenboat around 1979, when an article about his Newfoundland Trap Skiff appeared. She looked utterly nostalgic with her shapely hull - a lovely transom and perfect sheerline, but far too big and complicated for the resources and skills available to me at that time. Instead I went on dreaming for a few years before starting my career as an amateur wood-boat builder with the Nutshell, about which I raved in a previous post. Our American friends have certainly got the knack of drawing pretty boats, although Walt admits that he draws heavily on old English designs that went West with the Pilgrim Fathers.

When the design for the Christmas Wherry appeared I felt that she was just about right for my purposes, something small enough for me to handle easily out of the water and launch and sail easily and safely, whether single-handed or with a couple of friends. I duly got the drawings and built her in about a year of leisurely weekend work, putting on a couple of planks when the weather wasn't right for sailing.

just turned over, inside needs cleaned up

paint improves the look

I kept strictly to the lines drawn by Walt, but departed from his specifications in a number of details. I had some experience of glued clinker planking with the Swampscott dory I built  some years before and also seeing some of Iain Oughtred's designs in action. These boats hang together without frames, because you get an incredibly strong girder effect from the laps. Accordingly I built the wherry without frames, but used good quality 9mm ply and increased the lap width to a full inch (sorry I'm one of those transitional types that's part metric, part imperial). I also built buoyancy tanks into the ends, just in case we got swamped.

Instead of the recommended lug rig I decided to use a sprit-sail that I had got made for the Swampscott and retained when I passed her on. This is a beautifully cut sail of only 70 square feet, so it was interesting to see how it would drive the wherry. In the event it had plenty of power, but the boat was quite impossible to steer and we needed to get the oars out to put her about. Also in any kind of wind we made terrible leeway and ended up miles behind our friends heading for the annual picnic on Right Island.

As usual when I have a problem I called in Richard Pierce. He explained that a sprit sail gives most of its drive close to the leading edge, whereas the lug sail drives from further back. Thus the relative position of the sail and the centreboard was quite wrong, resulting in dreadful lee helm. We shored up the wherry and he took photographs, which he then digitised against the sail plan of his own highly successful Sciurus. Here is the result:-

Kelpie is shown in black and Sciurus in red. Richard's advice was to move the board to the position indicated in blue. In making this modification I decided to replace the centreboard with a daggerboard, gaining a keener leading edge and some more internal space. In our waters it's pretty deep until you're almost on shore, so the daggerboard isn't too much of a problem. The new board is a hydrodymanic shape, which I also copied from Richard's boat.

steering yolk just visible

The modification was a great success and Kelpie proved a fun boat to sail, especially in strong winds. This led to a further modification, because I originally built the rudder to be steered by a yolk, on the theory that this could be useful when single-handed. In the event it proved incredibly hard work and I was quite pleased when we broke the rudder one day, with four of us aboard in a force five. The new rudder has a lifting, hydrodynamic blade and a sturdy oak tiller.

 

For anyone interested in building the wherry the "easy" way, I noticed recently that Alex Jordan is now producing a kit of parts. He can be found at www.jordanboats.co.uk

To America in Style

For the 1938 British America Cup and Seawanhaka Cup races the Thom family crossed the Atlantic in style, aboard the TSS Letitia. There were only seventeen cabin passengers, including Herbert Thom, his mother Susannah and his son John. A little before their departure in early September Herbert's new six-metre yacht Circe had been craned aboard the Anchor Line's California at Yorkhill Quay. The whole excursion would have cost Herbert about £1,500, massive expenditure for one private individual on a very speculative adventure in international sport.

Letitia was part of the Anchor-Donaldson fleet and had been built at Fairfields in 1924, a replacement for the first Letitia, which had been wrecked in 1917. Driven by  six Brown-Curtis-Fairfield turbines  geared to drive twin screws she had a maximum speed of sixteen knots.

 

By 1938 Herbert Thom, in common with most people, was convinced that war was inevitable and I would guess that he decided to enjoy what was left of probably the last summer of peace. Letitia had an absolutely massive capacity of 516 cabin class and 1023 third class passengers served by 300 crew, so she seems to have been practically empty for the trip.

A couple of delights have survived from this trip. Captain Baillie clearly had great artistic ability and perhaps time on his hands, for he produced this delightful water colour for Herbert's mother.

I have written up the story of the races in Oyster Bay on my other blog, here. After some frustrating disappointments in the British America races, when the British team didn't get to grips with the technicalities of team racing, Herbert Thom and his crew went on to capture the Seawanhaka Cup and bring it to Scotland.  For the Cup races he had the pick of all the British sailors, who look an interesting bunch.

 

The team are, from left to right, Sandy Baird, William MacAusland, Herbert Thom,  Murray Maclehose and John Thom. In later life Sandy went on to become the Harbourmaster at Bermuda, Murray, a student at Baliol when the picture was taken, went into the diplomatic service and ended up as the Governor of Hong Kong and John survived an extremely dangerous and distinguished career in the Royal Navy and then joined the family firm. So far I have been unable to trace what happened to William.

The subsequent history of TSS Letitia was incredbly complex and can be read here: TSS Letitia history

She survived numerous collisions, strandings and other escapades and went through reincarnations as the Empire Brent and finally Captain Cook, serving as an armed merchant cruiser, a troop ship, a hospital ship and finally an emigrant ship taking Scots on the famous assisted passages to Australia.

Throughout she was managed from Glasgow and her crew, recruited there, eventually earned themselves quite a reputation. She was broken up at Inverkeithing in 1960.

Bad Neighbours

My last post has stirred up a certain amount of activity in the blogosphere, mainly on bluemoment.com and Yachting World's scuttlebutt, raising issues that go well beyond navigational matters at Ardmaddy.

Comment has been equally divided. On one hand I have been told off for being hysterical, that fish farms don't have exclusion zones and that it is easy to power past a salmon farm under engine. On the other hand Adrian Morgan has eloquently expressed his views in a comment on the last post and coincidentally Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has recently been agitating on the whole subject of farmed fish. He can be read online here.

To the charge of hysteria I must say that mild protest rarely works, particularly when dealing with an industry that has enormous financial and political clout. There is much more traffic at the new location than the present one and I will be shouting hard to stop it being blocked for half its width.

On exclusion zones I did write "effectively" a zone, not legally one. In my view it would be insanely bad seamanship to sail within the perimeter of a fish farm, let alone a mussel farm, where the floats are tied together with steel wires.

And not all mariners have or wish to use engines. Loch Melfort is constantly visited by small sailing craft, rowing craft and canoes.Visitors walk and occasionally camp on its shores.

Several comments decried the loss of wonderful natural harbours such as Craobh. A fellow called Quandary used to anchor there in the 1970s and as it happens so did I. I entirely agree with these comments, which only underline the need for proper regulation of the use of the seabed. A quite magical, remote cluster of little islands has been ruined by a garish pastiche of a village.

The comments raised general issues too, and I shall try to address some of them.

The salmon farming industry undoubtedly contributes massively to the national economy, but I have to ask if it really helps micro-economies in places like Argyll, where tourism and leisure are now by far the biggest earners. Would it not be better to locate the installations in places where visitors rarely go?

At a local level the installations generate very few jobs, invariably minimum wage and low-skilled. Living, say, in a remote caravan, tipping processed fish-meal and occasional doses of medicine into the sea is scarcely an appealing career option.  Standing on the hillside above, for example, Degnish Point, one may wonder how many fin-fish and shell-fish farms the area can stand before it loses its beauty and appeal to visitors. Is there not a serious risk that for every additional job on a fish farm another job in a hotel, a boat-yard or self-catering is put at risk?

One comment referred to our seas being massively over-fished. Of course they are, but according to the aforesaid Hugh it takes three tons of fish meal to produce one ton of salmon, so this industry is hardly helping.

Then there is the conflict between the industry and those concerned with the wild salmon. Why are there no wild salmon on the West coast, where the farms are, and plenty on the East coast, where they are not? Indeed why are there no farms on the East coast? The industry maintains there is no connection! There's a current petition before the Scottish Parliament and the briefing notes can be found here.

There's also the potential for conflict between salmon farms and shell fish farms. During my professional life I came across the owner of an oyster farm who was put out of business when his oysters were poisoned by TBT antifouling leaching from a nearby salmon farm.

For those who wish to inform themselves more there's a lot of information on sites such as  http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org.

Finally, let's have a look at the historical background. The ownership of the seabed in Scotland has been successfully claimed by the Crown as part of its prerogative. For most of our history this probably didn't matter too much, certainly not in financial terms, because the Crown prerogative was subject to certain inalienable rights of the general public, namely to fish (including shellfish but not salmon), to navigate and for recreation.

Matters came to a head in the late 1970s when the Crown Estate Commissioners, a body of London-based gentlemen, decided to levy charges for the fixed moorings laid by boatyards and the result was the well-known case of the Commissioners versus the Fairlie Yacht Slip. The issue boiled down to whether or not the owner of a vessel on a mooring was engaged in navigation. The argument could easily have gone either way, but in the event the Court was persuaded that navigation was what happened only when a vessel was on a voyage, so the Crown won. Since then a river of hard-earned cash has flowed from Scottish boat operators, be they commercial or recreational, to London. Belatedly the Scottish Government has just started to wake up to this.

After winning on the moorings issue the Commissioners quickly realised that further pickings could be made from fish farms. A problem for the general public was that the Crown was not only the owner of the seabed and entitled to rent it out, it was also the custodian of the rights of the public and thus charged with defending them. This conflict of interest was pointed out by the Scottish Law Commission in 2003, but to date no action has been taken to remedy it.

Ten years or so after the Fairlie case a certain Mr Walford bravely challenged the Commissioners when they had leased an area of the seabed between Scalpay and Skye. His first attempt at a judicial review failed, because the Commissioners found a statutory provision that appeared to make their actions unchallengeable (a contention that the Scottish Law Commission later said they didn't agree with). He had another go and lost again. The court held that the public had to tolerate having their rights interfered with, even to a material extent.

These litigations focussed on the right to navigate, but the public also have the right to use the sea for recreation. Perhaps this would have been a better basis to go to court on.

The fact is that regulation is presently in a complete mess. Apart from the Crown Estate Commissioners there are the Scottish Government and the local authorities, and organisations such as SEPA, not to speak of the European Union and proposed marine nature reserves. Ultimately for regulation to work it should be based in Scotland and the revenue must flow here too.