This was the first rally marred by the appearance of that new and unwelcome phenomenon — ‘the GPS bore’, as my wife Ann calls me. Yes folks it was me, trying to work out why my GPS was telling me with pinpoint accuracy that as I stood in Derwentwater Marina looking at St Herbert’s Island, the latter was in fact 142 miles away! If you really want to know you must be as boring as I am, so ask at the winter meeting at Elton and we’ll bore the whole audience!

At the rally were:

Dave Chatterley — own design Gerald Harrison — Lugger Stewart Calcutt & Phil Davies — own design Cliff Laycock & friends (fleetingly) — Lugger? Brian McClellan and Tony Nield

in addition Mike Cottam from Preston phoned to say he’d be there but didn’t manage it.

It was an enjoyable rally in spite of the indifferent weather. We all crowded onto the Tardis, as Keith renamed my poor old Wayfarer and drank minute quantities of beer in the hope of an undisturbed night. Gerald told us of the practical uses of a fabric conditioner bottle in that connection and I’ve been trying ever since to use up two litres of Comfort, aptly named, before my trip to Hull at Whitsun.

As usual we stayed at Myrtle Bay. The water level was high enough to get to the soft, grass-bottomed part, but Brian and other macho types stayed on the hard rocky part where the navy blue-painted rock bore silent testimony to my earlier trips. No-one reported red squirrels on this occasion. It rained intermittently and the wind was unreliable. We met up for a damp chat on St Hubert’s Island then pulled out on Sunday afternoon.

P.S. Obscure Fact No 1. The OS 1:25,000 Outdoor Leisure Maps of the Lake District do not give any indication of latitude and longitude.

Lochs Awe and Etive — May-June

Enquiries were made by Sue Davies, Terry Hughes, Keith Jones and Tim Winterton, but no rally was held as far as I know. Although Port Sonachan Country Club was prepared to accommodate our cars and trailers and the adjacent slip looked suitable, there was nowhere handy to camp. Several small, i.e. one car and a tent, spots exist south of Port Sonachan, but they are regularly used by brawny anglers. I did not have time at Easter to survey the northern shore, which is relatively remote and inaccessible. The broad north-eastern end of Loch Awe seems to have no public access, so a live-on-board arrangement launching from Port Sonachan remains the most practicable. Except for the 600 mile round trip (from Manchester).

I also checked on facilities for launching at Taynuilt on Loch Etive. There is a suitable, hard but slowly shelving beach, and room for cars, trailers and small-scale camping with shops and other facilities at Taynuilt, but there is no slipway and there are lots of visitors and passers-by, so that property would be at some, probably small, risk.

Finally I’d like to express my thanks to Brian McClellan, who wisely suggested that we should at Creran, go in Dave’s boat rather than my old Wayfarer.

Loch Awe, Loch Etive and Loch Creran… May 24 onwards by David Chatterley

Loch Awe and Loch Etive failed to attract any participants, and only three members attended at Loch Creran: Brian Swindlehurst — Cornish Coble, ashore in his caravan, and Daves Morton and Chatterley in a Leisure 17. The plan for the two Daves was to sail round Mull…

The weather, however, thought otherwise! In the next 17 days, 7 Atlantic depressions moved up the west coast of Scotland in succession, including one particularly vicious brute which threatened us briefly with the possibility of force 10! In the first six days we sailed on only two and a half, spending a day and a half in Loch Aline and two days storm-bound by the ‘big one’ in Tobermory.

We weren’t too worried initially… but then the locals started coming out to their boats and doubling up on their mooring warps. The sight of the chap who also tied his foredeck cleat to the mast wasn’t particularly cheering either. In the event we had a fairly bumpy and noisy 24 hours chained to a Highlands and Islands Development Board mooring. We were unable to go ashore for fear of not being able to row back against the wind. Dave M took to his bunk with the Guardian, while I plodded through a Dick Francis — and contemplated sketching Dave as the only reasonably stationary subject in my field of view! After the storm a two-day lull followed. ‘Lull’ in this context meant that the forecast wind strength dropped below force 7.

We used it to nip back to Creran so that Dave M, now despairing of the better planned objective, could go home and put the rest of his holiday to better use. I then spent two more days storm-bound in Creran, after which Brian and I managed a joint sail to the beach island, Eilean na Cloiche in the Lynn of Lorn, and I carried on to reach Puilladobhrain and return before the next bout of bad weather sent me home also.

How much one sails at the mercy of the weather. At least our enforced ‘rests’ were spent in comparative comfort — although not in quite the classy location of a friend of mine who, in a similar debacle, passed his time with his Wayfarer parked in the Italian Garden at Torosay Castle!