When I was a youngster sailing my model yacht, I often looked out to the river on hearing the thunder of large yachts tacking to windward as their sails shook and flapped before settling down on the new tack.
These were the days of Egyptian cotton sailcloth, often a creamy colour, which on fresh days with the yachts well heeled would be wet with spray at the sail’s foot . Then mainsails were large with long booms and headsails comparatively small and never to the masthead. Spinnakers too were comparatively small and seldom coloured. But my lasting memory is of the thunder of sails often heard before the yachts came into view. Now this noise is seldom heard from modern terylene sails which seem to flap less noisily and do not show whether they are wet or dry.
Another sound which accompanied the yachts tacking was the bell like ringing of the sheet winch ratchets as the slack of the jib sheets was taken in.
I remember sitting with many other yachts in the Kyles in a flat calm on a Corinthian Tarbert race waiting for a breeze when suddenly at the other side of the Kyle a new breeze began to fill in, accompanied by the ringing of sheet winches as boat after boat picked it up and began to heel and really slip along in calm water. Oh, the agony of waiting for the new breeze to fill across to us and the other leeward boats. Most of these winches were made by a company called Gibb and were indeed shaped like bells. Today winches are high tech with ball races and almost silent in operation.
These almost forgotten sounds of my youth contributed to the thrill of the sport which for me is the poorer with their passing.
Nicky Tam

John McNaughton has been recording the reminiscences of Hamish at 95. Here are some edited highlights from the ealy years

My mother’s father was shoemaker at Springfield. My other grandfather was the tenant at Feorlinn. When he died my father took it. I was born there in April 1912 on the Sunday before the Titanic went down. I was recalling this to a man in a pub once. He said “Aye, that’ll be two disasters in the one week then.”

Springfield isn’t there now. It fell into ruin. After WW1, MacCrae bought it along with Ardachuple and Feorlinn when prices were high. He thought to make a fortune but prices collapsed.

We moved to Shellfield in 1920 with 300 ewes at £7 a head and just 3 or 4 cows. This was the home farm and my father came in as shepherd. When the prices dropped he was out of a job, so he took the farm when sheep were cheap at £2 a head.

We ploughed to plant the turnips, tatties and corn. We sold eggs and that to the yachts and used to let the house to Glasgow Fair folk in the summer. We fed on braxy and muttonand salted herring. We’d kill a pig and had big hams hanging from the roof.

We had our provisions from MacSimon’s in Greenock. He’d be around each month taking orders that’d come to the pier in tea chests. Niel Black came down with his pony and trap collecting for folk up the Glen.

It was a busy road at Shellfield then. The Glen’s beasts were taken off Ormidale pier and would be kept here overnight.There used to be a lot of goats. I can mind about 30 around here. They ate a lot of grass did those goats and kept shifting around.

When I played shinty in the 30’s we had a lot of folk for the team. Competition was fierce. We were in the final against Kingussie. Ther put me and another out of team and called in two players from Tighnabruaich. We lost 2:1.

As a lad I spent happy hours chasing a model sailing yacht round a paddling pond. My friends all had them too but mine was of course the fastest! I had the chance to see the real yachts sailing at Hunters Quay, Gourock and Kilcreggan and it was not long before I was pestering my father’s friends to take me for a sail. One such, RN retired, who smoked with a lengthy cigarette holder, agreed to take me on an evening race and once bitten there was no looking back. As the clubs had no organized cadet sections then, the boat owners needed crew and encouraged keen boys to look after and prepare their yachts, allowing them to step aboard and sail with no worries.
Starting this way a boy gained experience of sailing and boat maintenance and met other crews and owners. The big event, apart from the Clyde fortnight, was the Clyde Corinthian Club’s Tarbert race on the last Saturday of July. While the large yachts raced round Garroch Head to Tarbert, the smaller ones started from Hunters Quay, went through the Kyles, around Ardlamont and on to Tarbert. This event attracted yachts of the Dragon, Six metre and Scottish Island classes as well as small cruising yachts few of which had more than rudimentary accommodation. The number competing was high and the parade of sail tacking through the Kyles past Colintraive was a spectacle. The faster yachts arrived in Tarbert late afternoon but the slower did not arrive before Sunday. The rules required that only a member of the club could steer during the race. This made answering calls of nature difficult for the owner and so that I could steer the yacht at such times I became a member of the Clyde Corinthian Yacht Club, which I still am. The last to reach Tarbert was awarded a trophy called the Tullis Pot.
Happy days!

Bobby Sinclair, after many years at sea, joined the Colintraive ferry in 1970. He shared reminiscences with Elizabeth Fairbairn

I’ll never forget the day when I came to Colintraive. It was the day that I met Martin Dunn, who’s now 80 and living next door. There were a lot of great characters on the ferry. There was Martin, John Peter MacDonald, Stan MacMillan. There aren’t any like that now.
One night, waiting on the other side, we heard a sports car going like the clappers from Ardmaleish. Out gets a chap with a cravat. ‘I say chaps, just up from London for a bit of island hopping. What’s the main town on that island?’ he says, pointing over at Colintraive. ‘London.’ says Martin Dunn, quick as a flash.
When I started we had an old Skye ferry and a couple of the original plywood ferries that were supposed to carry a 30 ton tank. Even with a 10 ton lorry on board they were like half submerged fish boxes. Our pride and joy was the Loch Riddon built for the run in 1986. It took 12 cars and a coach. It became too small and the Isle of Cumbrae filled in for a while until we got the Loch Dunvegan after the Skye bridge was built. You can see pictures of all the ferries at the Colintraive Hotel. Some are my photographs.
One day, the driver of the Rothesay bus, seeing the ferry was in, put the boot down a wee bit. An old lady sitting up front got a bit panicky. ‘Driver, driver, does this bus stop at Rhubodach?’ ‘Aye, missus’ says he, ‘if it disnae there’s going to be a hell of a splash!’
One night there were a few coaches waiting to get on. A youngish farmer appears all dressed in his best gear. Tweed suit and boots with turned up toes and a million tackits in the soles. Clump, clump. On his arm there’s this American woman and she’s calling ‘Donald, Donald, Ah love yew Donald!’
He’s wanting rid of her ‘Well I’m away the noo.’
‘Ah’ll come with yew Donald’ cries she. ‘Ah do so love yew.’
‘Ay well, maybe the morrow.’ says he and made it onto the ferry with her still calling ‘Donald, Ah love yew Donald!’
That just tickled my fancy.

The 2006-7 session started in October at Glendaruel Hall with a talk by Sadie Dixon-Spain on the future of Dunans Castle.

She gave a brief history of the building from when it was owned by the Fletcher family, up to the disastrous fire which reduced it to a burnt out shell. (more…)