Petestack Blog

While the gaps between my blogs get bigger, I’m still here and, bar the increasing timescale, what I wrote just three blogs but nearly three years ago is remarkably similar to how I might have started this one:

Sometimes things get blogged and sometimes they don’t but, months after I last blogged about anything and nearly a year since I last talked about sailing here, the impetus finally comes from a September cruise I couldn’t have done when I was still working.

So Fly was ashore again (for mostly non-Fly reasons) in 2023 and 2024, I wanted to go sailing, saw a nice all-purpose dinghy as retaining utility beyond my immediate needs and considered what to get before taking a two-day road trip to Suffolk and back last July to collect Laser 13 Muppet. Can’t say I was excited about the name at first, but I’ve never renamed a boat that already had one yet, it quickly grew on me as good for an unpretentious little boat, everyone else seemed to love it and I really can’t imagine her not being Muppet now! But let’s get back to 2025 Fly and talk dinghy stuff another time…

Round Mull Race

Months ago I sounded out past Fly crew and other sailing friends about a return to the Round Mull Race this year then, having arranged the capable crew of Keith Melvin (flying from Norway!), Jon Gay and Amanda Henderson but let myself get diverted for most of March by Glencoe Boat Club business, found myself facing a mad three-month scramble through substantive maintenance of both expected and unexpected nature to make the 27 June start. Here I had some much-appreciated assistance from Jon, Twig Olsen and Mark Thomasson, but was still working largely on my own with the boat launched the week before the race, joined by her crew the night before and first sailing on the very day!

It’s not my intention to do a detailed report of the race here when it’s already three weeks ago and my main motivation for blogging now is a photo report of this past week’s Royal Highland Yacht Club cruise, but some things should still be said. Since it was Fly’s first serious racing since 2005, we were always going to be working with a rusty skipper and more recently-active crew. There were things we didn’t have time to test before the race, causing a few wee problems like our late start from Tobermory on the second day after taking down the furling genoa only to discover that the battens for the No.3 were missing (later turning up in my loft at home, on which note I did say ‘mad three-month scramble’ to get ready and had only just put the No.1 and No.3 aboard) and having to put it up again. So we did the whole weekend off a handicap of 16.75 when we could have had 17.00 for furling headsail only although it made precious little difference on this occasion in affecting only our points standing and not the all-important ‘Round Mull’ metric of aggregate time. And, after debating applying for a dual handicap since getting my new sails in 2021, I have since done so and got it, now have the option of base handicap of 16.75 for full headsail choice or 17.00 for just furling genoa and would choose to do a race like Round Mull off the latter next time.

So how did we do? Not as well as I’d like and not as badly as I feared (now isn’t that so often the case for so many of us?), but think we still sailed well enough as a scratch crew on a boat that was barely ready. We got absolutely battered by wind and waves on the second (Tobermory–Bunessan) leg on a day that saw nearly a third of the fleet retire and unfortunately lost our newly repaired and refitted anemometer to the sea not far north of Bunessan after seeing it ripped from the mast and flailing about by its cable for most of the day. We started well and looked like really doing something on the third and final day before seeing it all (not for the first time!) evaporate in dying wind at a Frank Lockwood’s Island shortened finish where the choices experience told us to make proved to be the wrong ones on this occasion, but enjoyed truly great teamwork beating through the Sound of Iona and even more testing ground of the confined rocky minefield west and south of Erraid. And that’s about all I want to say about the race except to thank my crew for a job well done and Mal and Amanda Thomson for coming out to Bunessan to support us! :-)

Cruising with Joey

So, just as the motivation to blog about the September 2023 RHYC cruise came largely from wanting to share some photos of same with participants and other members, we see a similar return to blogging now for its July 2025 equivalent. Since this followed the ‘midsummer’ rather than ‘closing’ muster, the starting point was Lochaline rather than Loch Craignish, but the format and indeed some of the ground will seem familiar with a start by Sanna and Calgary Bays effectively reversing the mid part of that previous route. But how did former Commodore Joey Gough come to be aboard when I’d brought the boat down to Lochaline on my own and expected to be continuing singlehanded again?

Well, Joey was with Twig and Caron on Gemini for the muster and we were sitting together on the Saturday evening shortly before the meeting for cruise participants when he suddenly said something like, ‘how I can I find a boat to join for the cruise?’ and I just had to suggest that I could take him. Now, I’ve known Joey for c.29 years since first racing my Jaguar 21 Wyvern against his Mystere 26 Miss Mollie II, but barely sailed together although we had teamed up for (and won) a 2003 Oban Sailing Club two-handed race round Lismore on his First 32s5 Tangle o’ the Isles. So we knew we’d be good on the boat together and, with Tangle sadly now up for sale and me glad to have him aboard, both really got a lucky break there!

So it’s the Sunday morning and we’re leaving Lochaline under engine for Sanna in conditions as glassy and unpromising as those that had caused me to motor all the way from Glencoe on the Friday, but spy wind north of Fiunary Rocks and soon find ourselves running north under main and (old) kite with light kite sheets and no tweakers. Which proves to be an optimistic combination as the breeze increases to c.20 knots for a while and we’re making 7 knots through the water with these plastic-clipped thin things strapped down after all in what’s clearly ‘full-weight’ conditions. But several still-easily-managed gybes and fluctuations of wind strength later, we grab the chance to pull the kite back in under the boom bare-headed as my planned photo opportunity of Ardnamurchan lighthouse under spinnaker suddenly falls foul of more fluky decreasing breeze. Joey’s helmed the whole way as we finally allow the engine again on the way into Sanna, and we enjoy a pleasant hour or so along with Mark and Charmian Entwhistle of Discoverer of Sleat aboard John and Lesley Allan’s Leumadair of Lorne before returning to Fly with baked potatos from Discoverer for dinner.

Monday brings some rain, but we enjoy a good sail to Calgary with Joey still helming (something he’s clearly enjoying and I’m happy to let him do when I’m not precious about steering my own boat) and it does brighten up again for a beach barbecue and drinks party aboard Warisha.

Tuesday brings the dual objectives of Lunga for lunch and Loch Breachacha on Coll for the night, and we leave Calgary under sail (always my preferred method where practical) with — guess who? — Joey at the helm. It’s 31 years since my only previous visit to Lunga (on which occasion I also landed on Bac Mòr or the Dutchman’s Cap) although I’ve obviously sailed past the Treshnish Isles many times since, but have kept returning to my childhood paradise of Coll by both sailboat and ferry with my house ‘Stronvar’ in Kinlochleven named after the cottage Stronvar at Breachacha where we spent many of our happiest days. There’s up to a knot of tide running through the anchorage at Lunga (see photo of my stern ladder!), but we’re still able to row ashore, make an ascent of the mighty Cruachan at 103m above sea level and see some puffins, but where are the black rabbits that struck me so much before?

More sailing as we set the starboard-tack course we can actually make (which is not direct to Breachacha!) and Leumadair provides ample photo opportunity as she steadily overhauls us, but we eventually get to tack for Breachacha (the bit that’s missing from our saved track) and anchor inshore of everyone except Mark Thomasson in Mingming II. Now Mingming II’s not (yet?) an RHYC boat, but Mark’s a friend of mine who’s coincidentally cruising in the same area after recently buying the boat from Roger Taylor, who made some impressive trips to the Arctic in her and her smaller predecessor. It’s busy at Breachacha, with 14 yachts more than double what I’ve ever seen there before when we really never saw any except my father’s when we were young, so we decide not to overload Leumadair’s already extensive drinks guest list and invite Mark over to Fly instead. Which is funny, because he’s now visiting the ‘big’ boat that doesn’t rock when he steps aboard where we feel exactly the same visiting boats like Leumadair! Anyway, drinks turn to dinner as we manage to rustle something up from our meagre stores, and then a nice wee walk ashore in beautiful evening light as I show/tell Joey and Mark what I can about one of my favourite places.

Not much wind on Wednesday morning, so we start out motoring with battery charging and making the Cairns of Coll for lunch in mind, but Mark’s sailing and I get some stills and video of Mingming II, where the engine sound you hear take over from wind noise part way through is of course from Fly!

While I’ve previously sailed between Sùil Ghorm and the Cairns of Coll en route from Arinagour to Eriskay and knew all the north-east Coll beaches from childhood, this is my first visit to the anchorage up there so much enjoyed in that respect. We anchor dead on the north-south line where both Admiralty and O-charts (which I believe to be licensed from Admiralty) show depths to the east but not the west, so should probably get Antares too! This time Joey elects to stay on the boat while I row ashore to the beautiful little shell sand beach on one of the islets, then round and back (thinking this would be fun kayaking!) looking for the suitable landing spot I never find on Eilean Mòr.

Still not a lot of wind heading over to Drumbuie, but we’re able to fly the kite again to take us about halfway across before needing the engine to finish the job, arriving what we thought might be too late for drinks on Bluefin but subsequently staying (along with all or most of the other remaining cruise participants) for about three hours! So we eat late (very late!) anticipating a shortish day not bashing down the Sound of Mull against a fresh south-easterly as most of the fleet have to do, but finally choose to go that way too when my morning phone call to Salen Jetty, Loch Sunart, brings the recommendation that their pontoons are currently, um, bouncy and probably more comfortable for bigger boats.

So we leave Drumbuie under engine on Thursday morning with the new objective of making it back to Glencoe, where an initial bash down the Sound of Mull promises the trade-off of tide and wind home from Rubha an Ridire at the mouth of Loch Linnhe with no need to weigh up early vs. late tides (and probably wetter conditions) the following day. But, after catching up with Mark, who’s gamely beating down the Sound after sensibly skipping the Cairns of Coll and Drumbuie for a shorter route via Tobermory, we just have to start sailing too and soon find ourselves quite unexpectedly revelling in a fresh windward flight under just genoa, making steady 5.5 to 6 knots through flattish water and leaving every bigger boat we see behind! Then of course expectations get turned on their head again with the wind progressively dying once we hit Loch Linnhe and even the main not enough to save us from returning to diesel power for the last two-and-a-quarter hours from the north end of Shuna.

To wrap things up, Mark makes it to Port Ramsay that night and Loch Leven the next day, which seems good work mostly sailing on his smaller boat. It’s been great to see Joey enjoying sailing again so much and we clearly get on together on the boat, so altogether a great wee trip!