On Radio Scotland with Susan Calman

I had to be sailing and was told not to cheat, so found myself out on the water hunting for a good signal on the mobile, wind increasing, ready for the call, which came at exactly 10.45. Without an extra pair of hands it was quite challenging. With apologies for the sound quality here is the result:-  Radio Scotland clip on Youtube

Nat Herreshoff's Wee Winn lives again

We had a visit from Winifred, the reincarnation of Nat Herreshoff's half rater design of 1892, Wee Winn, built in 1999 and now in the command of proud owner Brian Corbett and have enjoyed a week of lovely weather and ideal sailing conditions for this extremely fast little yacht.

It seemed a good idea to challenge her for a trip round the Isle of Shuna, so off we went.

By the time we reached Shuna Sound Winifred was almost out of sight.

Passing Shuna Cottage, soon to be threatened by a massive 600,000 capacity salmon growing "farm".

Finally, a little history from the Detroit Free Press, 1896:

Rules - What are they for? What is their status?

Rules - What are they for? What is their status? 

I’m sure that most of us just want to go rowing, but there are some sad people who think about dry and dusty things like the rules. Later this year when we go to the Skiffieworlds there will probably be quite a few who are not just sad but a little upset as well, because we are likely to see modifications in construction that we discussed during our own build but rejected as outwith the spirit of Scottish Coastal Rowing.

The viral growth of the fleet has taken everyone by surprise and it’s clear that the measurement rules would have been much more tightly drawn had this been anticipated. As a result SCRA has commissioned a full review of the rules with a view to bringing in amendments for discussion at a future AGM. I am a member of the group charged with considering the existing rules, gathering views and offering advice.

All of us on the group are wearing two hats, because we are also involved in our own clubs and want to win races. Now that we at Seil are on the water and gaining our own experience we should be thinking about the issues surrounding the rules, so that we can adopt a position at any future SCRA meetings where amendments are discussed. I’m posting about some of the issues, in the hope that it will stimulate thought and perhaps a bit of discussion through comments.

I suggest that it’s possible to identify a number of quite distinct reasons why we need rules for boats in a class. I can think of four, safety, strength, speed and spirit. There may be a fifth that spoils the alliteration, cost, but with the kit-built skiffs I suspect it’s less important than we think, as the big items are all fixed.

I won’t waste time describing why the first three are important. By spirit I mean the range of emotional factors that have come together in the last three years or so surrounding the St Ayles skiffs and their communities. It’s a mixture of nostalgia reflecting the history of the boat type and shape plus the unique elements that make them attractive and in time will become a tradition.

Traditions all start somewhere, usually for good reasons which get lost as time passes. All sports have them for a variety of reasons, good and bad. Good reasons tend to reinforce the sense of belonging to a community, bad ones lead to exclusivity (c.f. certain bowling and golf clubs). We’ve all come across this, probably without actually acknowledging that in a sport one can do things for no obvious practical reason.

In our rules group I have argued that we should be aware of the importance of spirit and not shy away from promoting it as a value. It’s actually the only reason why any of us would take to the water in an attractive, slightly old-fashioned looking wooden boat with oars hanging off wooden thole pins and a flag pole on the front. Otherwise we’d be scooting about on sliding seats in carbon fibre contraptions and probably wearing designer lycra.

As we all know, the concept of the St Ayles skiff was developed at the Anstruther Fisheries Museum to commemorate certain traditions and perhaps revive them. In no particular order the historical antecedents were:

Scandinavian, ultimately Viking, boat shapes.

Historical Scottish fishing practice.

Recreational and competitive rowing in our east coast towns, particularly among the miners.

Traditional styles of rowing with long oars, kabes or thole pins.

The rules as presently expressed do refer to the spirit of the St Ayles skiffs, but there is a lack of detail, also an apparent reluctance to be open about the importance of this. As a result particular provisions designed to entrench the spirit have been justified on the other grounds, safety, strength speed and cost.

In the group I have argued that we should have the courage to acknowledge that rules making a boat strong may have nothing to do with safety, rules about speed may have nothing to do with either of those and rules about spirit absolutely nothing to do with any of the others.

Some of the issues are fairly clear. For example as we learned during the build adding rocker by reducing the keel at the ends is not allowed. Others are less so. Here are some of them.

Rowlocks.

The rule requiring these to be of wood has been justified on cost grounds, but metal crutches are demonstrably cheaper and longer lasting that wooden pins or kabes. Also some clubs have made clever wooden imitations of carbon fibre racing fittings, enabling oars to be feathered.

Feathering oars.

As a consequence of clever woodwork feathering has become possible and seems to be within the current rules. We have to think about whether or not this is the style of rowing the clubs (and we personally) want to see.

Should feathering oars be banned? On balance my personal view is, yes, they should be. I would argue that the traditional system with kabes or pins is central to the experience and much easier for inexperienced rowers to master. My views might change after a lot of hard upwind work though.

Spoon blades/choppers

Spoons are disallowed, ostensibly on cost grounds. That justification doesn’t stand up, because it’s cheap and easy to laminate curved blades using the same procedure as we did with the stems. It seems truly a question of spirit.

Materials

The existing rules allow a number of specified traditional materials apart from wood – “Brass, Silicon Bronze, Stainless Steel, Gunmetal” and go on to say “The only synthetic material permitted in the boat construction is the glue which should be of Marine Quality, and will usually be Epoxy resin or a Polyurethane glue”.

I think everyone has problems with the letter of this. Our polypropylene strips are illegal, but most skiffs have something similar, as bronze ones cost about £300. One recent skiff is said to have stainless steel thole pins, done with no intention to gain an advantage.

Footrests are not shown in the plans, but are necessary for rowing efficiently. A discussion is ongoing about the extent to which they may incorporate metal adjusting/strengthening strips.

Rudders

Alec Jordan’s original view was that the design should be completely open, to allow ideas to develop. During our build we discussed how it would be better for the pintles to be in a vertical line to the water and how this could be done with an outrigger. We decided not to do this and to keep the leading edge following the aft stem. Given the lack of a rule banning outriggers it will be interesting to see what people turn up at Ullapool with.

Selkie's very legal rudder

Later this year clubs will be asked to comment on these issues and if they want to entrench some basic principles which would purely be intended to preserve the spirit of inclusive community participation and the obvious good things that are causing this project to grow so quickly. It will be interesting to see what each regards as important to the experience of being involved with the St Ayles skiffs. We should be thinking about our own contribution to this. I await our own discussion with interest.

This post was written originally for www.seilskiff.org.uk and is reposted here for general interest.

  

Visitor from Bermuda

We looked out yesterday morning to find that a huge bird had landed at the head of the loch, where it's too shallow for ships and usually the haunt of herons, curlews and oyster catchers.

It turns out she's the command of Captain Kirk Ward, master boat builder and jazz musician of Hamilton, Bermuda and she's en route to Wales, having just crossed the Atlantic at speeds of up to twenty four knots and arrived here via the Corryvreckan.

This strikingly elegant trimaran has had an interesting career. She's a Chris White Hammerhead design, fifty four feet overall and thirty five wide, built about twelve years ago for her first owner to use as a retirement home.

She was soon bought by the long distance multihull racer John Barry, who added the bowsprit and a new sailplan and named her Rogue Wave. He won a lot of races in her before she found some water that was too shallow for her and piled up on a reef at speed. The entire bottom was ripped out and the wreckage was acquired by Captain Kirk, who has made an excellent job of putting her back together again.

The First St Ayles Regatta on Seil

The mist cleared on Saturday as the wind got up beyond what was forecast, giving interesting rowing conditions for the three skiffs in the race track from Seaview along the shore to the finish in Easdale Sound.

The Portobello visitors in Ice Breaker showed their experience by powering ahead in the first race, closely followed by Mid Argyll’s Uisge with Selkie of Seil quite a bit behind. The Rowportys victory was a bit of a moral one however, as the wind had whipped away the announcement that the  finish line had been changed, so that they came to a temporary halt at the pier and allowed the Selkies to cross the new line first.

The line was changed back for the second race, which had the same finishing order, Selkie suffering a broken thole pin just after the start.

By the third race the Selkies were getting more into their stride, but again Ice Breaker powered home a little in front of Uisge.

The proposed Round Easdale Race had to be abandoned, as the wind had whipped up quite a nasty sea outside of the sound, so there was plenty of time for members of all three clubs to inspect and try out the other skiffs and socialise.

The main entertainment at the ceilidh came from Neil and Laura Kennedy and the Seil Sound singers with solo contributions from among others  Emily Aldwinkle and Graham Campbell who sang and Sue Vest who delivered a beautiful flute solo.

Uisge couldn’t stay for the Sunday, so the two other skiffs had a cruise in company in stunning conditions, the sun sparkling over the waves, down tide through the Cuan Sound followed by a parade past the Tigh an Truish and under the Bridge over the Atlantic. 

During the weekend there were many opportunities for visitors to have go at rowing. Scottish Coastal Rowing is spreading like a virus round our shores.

Another Chapter closed at Ardmaddy, but the Book's not written yet!

Read to the end to see the significance of this picture

This week there was a good chance to see democracy in action, Argyll style, at the Corran Halls when the PPSL Committee met to decide the controversial application for a 600,000 capacity fish farm in Seil Sound.

The application had attracted about 800 objections, of which over 100 came from residents of Seil, Easdale and Luing, representing about a  quarter of the adult population. A further 140 or so came from mid-Argyll, another 125 from the rest of Scotland and about 350 from the rest of the United Kingdom, many of them holiday visitors, and 65 came from abroad. There were also 44 letters in support, of which one was from a local resident.

Those who have been following this saga will know that some years ago Ardmaddy was selected as a “pilot relocation project” by the Scottish Government to receive a transfer of the total production from a site in Loch Riddon, which had been polluting to such an extent that much of the wildlife there had become extinct. As a result the site at Ardmaddy had its capacity increased from 800 tonnes (200,000 fish) to 1300 tonnes (325,000 fish) but it was soon found that the natural capacity of the environment could not cope, as the strong tidal streams round the top of Seil Sound were carrying away huge quantities of fish waste, toxic chemicals and pesticides with some ending up in the nearby Firth of Lorn, which enjoys special protection under the European Habitats Directive.

Faced with having to relocate the operating company decided not only to move further South down the Sound but to apply for an increase of permitted biomass at the same time, to a total of 2,500 tonnes. Representing 600,000 mature salmon, this is the maximum that can currently be licensed for any farm in Scotland.

As consultees the Argyll Fisheries Board argued that it would be better to relocate without simultaneously increasing the biomass, to discover if the new site was truly better than the existing one. This would seem to be the prudent scientific way to do things, but wasn’t to be.

Although the major problems with large scale industrial fish farms are to do with pollution and waste disposal it seems that Argyll & Bute Council has convinced itself that such matters have nothing to do with the planning process. Astonishingly (and perhaps to the surprise of the applicants) the Council decided it was unnecessary to require an Environmental Impact Assessment.

Accordingly the issue came down to one of jobs – preserving employment in the operating company and its suppliers versus the threat perceived by the local residents, and expressed in their strong objections, to their own jobs in tourism and leisure based businesses. Here we saw some instances of local democracy at its very worst.

A supporter of the application claimed that unlike fish farming, tourism employs mainly “folk from Eastern Europe”. Underlying some councillors’ remarks seemed to be a feeling that jobs in tourism don’t count. There used to be a feeling that it was somehow demeaning to work in a service industry rather than to do “real work” such as in agriculture and fisheries and one would have hoped that such days were long gone.

Councillor Devon let slip her feelings in asking for figures about “your tourism” as if the industry is a trivial local thing: one would have thought that a politician would know that the sector is bigger by far than any other outside the public sector, generating, according to Scottish Government figures 130 times more revenue than aquaculture does.

Councillor Currie spoke strongly in support of the application, despite knowing that his home community of Islay had protected their jobs by seeing off efforts by a fish farm company to establish a similar operation there (746 locals plus 102 visitors signed the petition against).  Perhaps he’s hoping that the people back home don’t get to hear how he voted.

At the end of the day not one of the committee found any merit whatsoever in the points put forward on behalf of the residents of Seil and the application was granted unanimously.

This closes a chapter in the story of fish farming around Seil, but the book isn’t written yet. This week also saw an application going in to SEPA for yet another 2,500 tonne installation in a proposed new site off the bay at the South west corner of the Isle of Shuna. 

The image at the top is the plan of the proposed new farm off Shuna. It's vital that anyone who wants to continue being able to sail in Argyll gets involved in stopping this madness.

Please watch for progress on http://www.saveseilsound.org.uk/wordpress

Argyll Kayak Trail _ With THIS in the middle of it? We don't think so!

For a couple of years a growing group of us, residents of mid-Argyll in a completely lovely part of the West coast of Scotland, have been campaigning against the mad expansion of industrial fish farming in the sea lochs.

Our campaign group has established a website www.saveseilsound.org.uk which has all the details.

The image above shows an existing farm operated by Lakeland Marine Farm, who have recently been given permission to increase its size to almost double. They also want to instal a new farm, which will block nearly half the navigable width of the Seil Sound, an utterly historical part of our coast.

The local economy here is extremely fragile. Outside of those employed by the public sector, health workers, teachers, the police and so on, it depends almost entirely on tourism in all its forms.

Many (perhaps most) readers of this blog live outside of the United Kingdom but I'm aware from comments received over the years I've been blogging that many of you have ancestral connections with the area, from which thousands emigrated to all parts of the World. You form a sizeable contingent of our annual visitors, families from the States and Canada returning to their roots, Australians making pilgrimages to Ulva, from where MacQuarrie came, and so on.

Only last year my brother had the honour of piping while the ashes of an American Campbell lady were consigned to the Sound of Shuna.

Things are hotting up now, with a planning application going to a hearing in the next month or two. because of this we've started a new blog, here, http://saveseilsound.org.uk/wordpress/

Click the link to see the relevance of the photograph at the top!