Cruising the Clyde

Adie helming down Kilbrannan Sound

In August we had signed up for the RYA Scotland Malin Waters Cruise. I headed up to the boat with Derek and Adie as crew on Thursday August 8th. We arrived at Rhu mid-afternoon, filled up with fuel and stocked the boat up. On Friday, we headed off mid-morning (after a stop in the Helensburgh wool shop) and sailed down to Largs.

August 9th – Rhu to Largs – 20.5 miles in 3 hours and 45 minutes

A bizarre trip. We hoisted sail (one reef – full jib) straight out of the marina and tacked down towards Cloch Point. The wind was very variable but around N/NW 3-5. On rounding Cloch Point, the wind dropped to almost nothing, making our reef slightly unnecessary! In the meantime on the Dunoon shore we watched boats with reefs in broaching in water covered with white caps, while we struggled to even gain steerage way on the Inverkip shore. Eventually, the breeze filled in a little and finally as we approached Largs, it built to a healthy 5 gusting 6.

The main change on the passage was the fact that the Inverkip power station chimney had been demolished. Inverkip power station was an oil-fired power station, but the most outstanding feature of it was the 237 metre chimney – the tallest free-standing structure in Scotland and the same height as Canary Wharf in the docklands. It took a lot less time to get it down, compared to putting it up.

That evening we had a briefing about the cruise. However, with an ‘interesting’ and very variable forecast, we decided to pull out of the cruise. The main reason for this decision (aside from dodgy weather at the end of the week) was that they decided to head straight for Rathlin the first day – a decision that would have meant a 70 mile passage, near enough all under power. So, we decided to head off elsewhere and make sure we could sail.

August 10th – Largs to East Loch Tarbert – 27.6 miles in 5 hours and 35 minutes

A lovely passage. A little quiet to start off with as we headed through Cumbrae Passage, but the breeze filled in a little and gradually rose giving us a lovely sail round Bute to East Loch Tarbert.

August 11th – East Loch Tarbert to Campbeltown – 35.7 miles in 6 hours

The forecast was not a classic one, but with a westerly expected we decided to head straight down Kilbrannan Sound to Campbeltown. In fact, the first hour down to Skipness Point was very quiet and right on cue the wind headed us meaning we could only make Loch Ranza on starboard. We did a tack across towards the Mull and after half an hour or so, the wind headed us a little allowing us to tack and make it down Kilbrannan Sound on one tack. As we passed Carradale the wind rose and on the last leg into Campbeltown was blowing a healthy F5 gusting 6 into Campbeltown Loch. However, this gave us a lovely run down the sound topping 8 knots for the final stages. 8.4 knots was the top speed!

At Campbeltown we moored on the pontoon close by the commercial harbour. Campbeltown apparently had at one point 34 distilleries meaning that it was known as the “whisky capital of the world“. A focus on quantity rather than quality and the unfortunate combination of the Great Depression and prohibition took their toll though and there are now just three distilleries left.

Charmary in Campbeltown

August 12th – Campbeltown to Lamlash via Ailsa Craig – 43.4 miles in 6 hours and 30 minutes

A cracking sail from Campbeltown. With a moderate F4-6 from the north west forecast, we decided to run down to Ailsa Craig, round the rock and then head up to Lamlash Bay on Arran. If that was a little tight or the wind shifted then we would head for Troon instead. We headed across to Ailsa Craig on a broad reach and gybed across after a few hours to round the rock. I had passed it already earlier in the season and realised the scale of the rock, but I hadn’t realised the scale of the bird population on the rock. What looked like rock from a distance was in fact a mass of gannets and other birds nesting on the rock. The closer we came to the rock, the more gannets and shearwaters we saw – a fantastic sight.

Rounding the rock, we headed up on a close reach and with the wind gusting a F6 at times, had a great sail across to Lamlash. the record speed for the day was 8.9 knots. Though it was a bit grey and murky when we entered the bay, it cleared later in the evening, giving us a lovely view of Holy Isle and Lamlash. The only slight downside was that we had to move to another buoy at about 9pm when we almost swung into the boat next door. Clearly long keel and wing keel boats on next door moorings don’t mix when the vagaries of light winds and light tides are combined.

August 13th – Lamlash to Portavadie – 28 miles in 5 hours and 55 minutes

A complete contrast today as we headed north round Arran to Portavadie on Loch Fyne. We managed to sail off the mooring in Lamlash, but the wind stayed very light, shifted right round into the north (where we wanted to go!) and then died completely. After an hour or so of motoring, a light breeze filled in, but there was another hour or so of motoring again later as it died again. Still – we managed to sail the majority of the trip, though the best breeze came just as we headed into Portavadie marina.

August 14th – Portavadie to Port Bannatyne – 22 miles in 4 hours and 40 minutes

A lovely sail – quite light to start off with as we beat down towards Ardlamont Point, but once we bore away round the point the wind filled in from behind and we had a lovely spinnaker run down the West Kyle. We did have to drop the spinnaker at Rubha Dubh and then a white sail reach across to the Burnt Islands (though we did also stick our nose into Caladh harbour). We then motorsailed down the East Kyle with the wind right on the nose and gusting a little, eventually bearing away into Kames Bay – Port Bannatyne.

August 15th – Port Bannatyne to Rhu via Little Cumbrae Island – 42 miles in 7 hours and 50 minutes

With slightly murky (for which read wet!) forecast, we decided to head out from Port Bannatyne and head south round Little Cumbrae Island before heading home for Rhu. We nearly bottled out and went through Cumbrae Passage when the rain came in, but the weather cleared a little and so we carried on round the southern tip of Cumbrae Island and then bore away down the Hunterston Channel and had a lovely run back to Largs. Once there we wound the jib in and the shadowed the GP14 nationals fleet watching the last few legs of their first race. we then stayed and watched the start of the second race – great fun.

From there we headed back to Rhu with a very variable wind – anywhere between 10 and 24 knots and shifts of around 50 degrees. However, we had a nice run until around Gourock when the wind essentially died and we motored the last few miles. A lovely end to a really nice tour around the Clyde.

GP14 Nationals start

Returning to Rhu

Summary: Port Bannatyne back to Rhu. 17.1 miles in 2 hours 50 minutes. Motored all the way – next to no wind at all.

Charmary in Rhu

We headed back to Rhu this morning in more or less a flat calm – a complete contrast to the last few days. Not an exciting passage, but we did see lots of shoals of very small fish bubbling and jumping close to the surface with gulls picking them off. We then saw lots of porpoises – all presumably after the same thing!

We also saw the Waverley. She is the last seagoing passenger carrying paddle steamer in the world. She was built in 1946 and operated the Craigendorm (Clyde) to Arrochar (Loch Long) route from then until 1973. She was originally owned by the London and North East Railway Company (LNER), though with the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, she became part of the Caledonian Steam Packet Company (CSP). CSP gradually in the 1970s with the Scottish Ferry Company – David MacBrayne Ltd. which became Caledonian MacBrayne – or CalMac as it is better known.

The Waverley (which is named after Sir Walter Scott’s first novel – Waverley) is now owned by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society and operates all round the UK. She usually cruises the Thames area in September and October.

The PS Waverley

As we got closer to Rhu, three police launches, four police RIBs, two minesweepers and a naval patrol boat gave a hint of something going on. Sure enough, a few hours later a large nuclear submarine went past the marina. She was, according to a German sailor further down the pontoon, a Vanguard Class of submarine. He proceeded to give me precise dimensions and details of the sub which did make me wonder whether he was more interested in submarines or the classic yacht he was on! He also suggested that she was damaged and it did look like a series of plates along the side of the hull, but whether this was correct or not – who knows.

There are apparently four Vanguard Class subs with three at sea at any given time and one in for refit. HMS Vengeance is apparently in for a major refurbishment at the moment, so what we saw was presumably either HMS Vigilant, Victorious or Vanguard – the other three imaginatively named subs. The Vanguard Class has a Rolls-Royce pressurised nuclear reactor as the propulsion and they can circumnavigate the globe around 40 times at 25 knots without any need to refuel. This did start me wondering if they do a mini version for Starlights – particularly having just put 60 litres in the tank from motoring a lot the last week.

Vanguard Class sub going past Rhu

Pottering back to Port Bannatyne

Summary: Tarbert to Port Bannatyne. 23.5 miles in 4 hours 25 minutes. Managed to sail most of the way with a short motor up the West Kyle.

Tarbert Harbour

The weather decided to ease after a couple of days of blowing hard, so we left Tarbert about 07.25 and headed down round Ardlamont Point and then up the West Kyle. With the wind behind we managed to sailed the first 7 miles or so (under jib only), but up the West Kyle the wind was dead ahead, so the motor went on. Once at the top though, the jib came out again and, though the wind went very fickle across the top of Bute, we managed to sail all the way through the Burnt Islands and back down the East Kyle.

Looping across to Loch Ranza

Summary: Port Bannatyne to Loch Ranza (Arran), 23.2 miles in 4 hours. Through the Kyles of Bute and the Burnt Islands and across to Arran.

Moored in Loch Ranza

We left around 8.40am heading through the East Kyle to the Burnt Islands and then down the West Kyle past Tighnabruich and Kames and across to Loch Ranza on Arran. A beautiful trip despite the weather and we managed to sail for the last part across to Arran. Picked up a visitors mooring in Loch Ranza.

In the afternoon we went ashore and walked past Lochranza Castle at the end of the bay. Lochranza Castle, as with many in this area, dates back to the 13th century, though most of what cn be seen today dates from the 16th century. Perhaps its most recent claim to fame is that it was used as the model for the castle in the Tintin adventure ‘The Black Island’. Bob de Moor, Hergé’s chief post-war assistant toured Britain finding appropriate settings and chose Lochranza for the castle in The Black Island.

We then paid a visit to the Arran Distillery. The distillery is a very new one and only opened in 1995. In fact the opening was delayed by a pair of Golden Eagles who were nesting in the hills above the distillery – all work was stopped while the pair raised their chicks. The distillery now produces around 750,000 litres per year and I can vouch for the fact that the 10 year old single malt is very nice! It is said that there used to be around 50 distilleries on Arran, but since they were all ‘moonlight’ ones, the new Arran distillery is the first legal one.

After visiting the distillery we walked round the bay following signs to the fairy dell. We are not sure if we ever got there as we didn’t see any fairies and we weren’t sure we saw a dell, but it was a lovely walk nevertheless. We did see two different orchid species though – the common spotted orchid and the northern march orchid.

Deer & Charmary

Bobbling across to Port Bannatyne

Summary: Loch Goilhead to Port Bannatyne. 28.1 miles in 4 hours and 45 minutes. Motored for the first few hours but then a nice breeze (though right on the nose) meant we could sail the last stretch.

Rothesay Harbour

We left Loch Goilhead early morning and headed down Loch Goil, Loch Long and past Inverkip. We then rounded Toward point and rather than head into Rothesay, we decided to try the new marina at Port Bannatyne. The marina was only built in the last couple of years and offers around 100 berths behind a stone breakwater in Kames Bay. It is sheltered and accessible at all states of tide.

Port Bannatyne itself is a small village about 3km north of Rothesay. During the second world war it was the Headquarters of the Royal Navy’s 12th Submarine Flotilla – HMS Varbel. They requisitioned the Kyles Hydro Hotel as their headquarters and used nearby Loch Striven as a testing area. The base was the only base in the UK for midget submarines and human torpedoes. The midget submarines were known as X-craft and were around 51 foot in length. they were designed to be towed to the appropriate area by a larger sub and they were then deployed to hunt out their target. The explosives they carried were in what were known as ‘side-cargoes’ and once they reached the target, they dropped the explosives and headed off quickly! Perhaps the highest profile attack they were involved in was in September 1943 when two submarines successfully laid charges under the Tirpitz, rendering her out of action until April 1944.

In the afternoon we went into Rothesay on the bus and walked past the castle and to Loch Fad – an inland Loch and trout fishery. Rothesay Castle has an unusual circular plan and a history dating back to the start of the 13th century. It is now ruined and is managed by Historic Scotland.

Rothesay Castle