Dear all, in advance of the AGM, please advise us of any activities your club undertook
which may be worthy of a coveted SCRA green or blue flag. Green flags are awarded for
environmental efforts which benefit your club and the surrounding community and blue
flags are in recognition of efforts which benefit others e.g. fundraising for the RNLI,
MacMillan etc. To ensure that you don’t miss out, please share your stories with us by 14 th
October.

Send stories to: secretary@scottishcoastalrowing.org.uk

A blustery easterly wind was the forecast of the day, marquees needed holding down with lots of ropes and an abundance of cake! The lifeboat open day had returned to Buckie after several years of absence on a smaller scale than before with the hope of building it back up in future years. The event this year included a small number of stalls and food outlets and the St Ayles skiffs rowing in the basin in Buckie harbour providing close racing for spectators to watch.

The races took the form of a pursuit style event around 4 red buoys in the corner with 2 start/finish buoys (yellow)  in the middle of the leg for each boat to start on.

Figure 1 – Race course

The races were short and there was time for novice crews to practice before heading to the line. 6 Categories were raced for during the day with a 7^th being a blue light event. This entailed the police, fire brigade, coastguard, lifeboat, and ambulance services battling it out to get there first. The ambulance crew of 4 novices even went to the effort of fancy dress – Or at least we hope they don’t usually look like that! The fire brigade and police both had 2 novice rowers, the coastguards had 1 novice rower and the lifeboat crew had 3 novice rowers. The final was won by just 0.69 of a second by the lifeboat crew who narrowly piped the coastguard.

In the open category the men’s race was won by the lifeboat crew rowing in Boatie. Lossimouth won the women’s, and the mixed was won by Uisege. In the 40s category the lifeboat crew won the men’s race, Lossiemouth won the women’s and Banac won the mixed.

Buckie lifeboat would like to thank all crews for supporting the event and hope to have it running again in future.

The full results are shown below.

Fantastic weather gave perfect conditions for fierce competition at the Isle of Whithorn this weekend, 27th & 28th August 2022.

Jamie’s Jaunt was our first regatta with a nod to Outcast filmed at out historic harbour.  The race began at the harbour with Skiff and a runner leaving at the daw time and to meet at Port Shuchan to collect a token. The skiffs then made their way down to Croy beach and straight back to the harbour. The course was 5nm with some large swells. Prestwick Coastal Rowing Club took up our invite to the Regatta and went out second.

A group of 19 rowers from Dundee have travelled to Arran to circumnavigate the island in a St Ayles skiff. They were following in the wake of an epic round Arran row accomplished by the Arran Coastal Rowing Club (ACRC) in 2018.

The group based themselves at the Arran Outdoor Education Centre in Lamlash and began and ended their row at the centre over 21 and 22 June.

The rowers formed into teams of six and rowed in relays round the island. The row was broken into six stages. Whereas the Arran club rowed clockwise round the island in a single day, the Dundee group rowed in the opposite direction over two days to make best use of the wind and tide conditions.

The distance covered was around 55 miles and the row took approximately 15 and a half hours, slightly exceeding the ACRC “world record” time of just under 15 hours.

The boat used was a St Ayles skiff commissioned and owned by Dundee Sailing Club. The club is a dinghy cruising club that sails on the River Tay between Perth, Arbroath and St Andrews. Club sailors have also sailed further afoot, including round Arran, Mull, the Small Isles and even to Lindisfarne, so it was only a matter of time before the club’s rowers also started to look beyond the Tay. Once they became aware of the Arran rowing club’s circumnavigation of Arran the challenge was afoot and the Dundee rowers became only the second club to take their St Ayles skiff around Arran, probably? If you know otherwise please let us know.

Dundee Sailing Club only took delivery of their skiff and began a rowing section just over a year ago. Even more remarkable is that some of the rowers that took part in the round Arran row had been rowing for only a few months. The skiff has a sixth seat in the bow which is useful for taking out “passengers” unable to row, those who are new to rowing or a strong sixth “spare” rower to swap in to the crew on longer trips.

The 19 rowers prepared for Arran by attending focussed technical training sessions that took place on a weekly basis, often in rough and testing conditions, and doing longer recreational rows on the Tay. In the event, the weather for the Arran row was mostly benign and always warm.

The Arran Coastal Rowing Club was called upon for advice and guidance during preparation for the trip, which they gave generously. Master boat builder Rory Cowan, from Kildonan on Arran, was invaluable to the Dundee effort when he stepped up to help with some repairs and refurbishment the day before the trip began. He also just happened to be on hand to help at a tiny beach when the Dundee skiff, called Eider, was nosing her way through the rocks looking for a soft landing.

Rory also arranged for the Dundee group to go out in the Arran skiff to experience the slightly different set-up and oars in that boat, from which they took some useful learning points and potential modifications to their own boat.

Whilst no two rows on the Tay are ever the same and our scenery is a delight, the Dundee rowers found much to thrill them during their circumnavigation of Arran including sightings of dolphins, porpoises and seals, the challenge of and slight unease at rowing in unfamiliar, sometimes choppy, waters, gliding along the shore of Holy Isle looking at the shrines and the Soay sheep and leaving their beloved skiff nestled on a beach overnight and returning to find it still there next morning!

During their stay on Arran the group was based at the Arran Outdoor Education Centre. A spokesperson said: “We were looked after beautifully and fed so very well after our strenuous days at the oars. The centre is a stunning base for Arran adventures and we hope to return with more rowers and perhaps some sailors in future. We can’t recommend highly enough that other coastal rowing clubs should come and circumnavigate Arran.”

Dundee Sailing Club, former RYA Club of the Year, is a community-based sailing and rowing club. The club is located at Grassy Beach, Broughty Ferry. More information can be found on the club website at www.dundeesailingclub.org.uk. The club can be contacted at dundee.sc@googlemail.com