ONBOARD Adrian Morgan
new-season spruce-up, and plummeted off the edge, due to a slight miscalculation of available pier. She is now the only stealth Flying Fifteen afloat, having been painted in Tesco’s best black (non-drip) gloss. With her skull and crossbones house flag at her truck, she presents a terrifying sight to other boats, which was probably the reason why her skipper Donald chose the scheme. If he can’t catch them up he can attempt to intimidate them into giving up a place or two with the threat of cutlasses to the rigging (something which did occur between competing yachts off Cowes in the last years of the 19th century, before the port and starboard rules were clarified and the phrase inserted: “No competitor may strike down his rival’s mast using anything other than a Sheffield-steel bone-handled table knife. Use of cutlasses, axes or similar will result in forfeiture of club dining room privileges for one calendar month.”). At the RLBSC, as it has come to be known, modestly (there has been a great deal of jealous sniping from clubs in the area unlucky enough to have been passed over for the honour), we have few rules, preferring simply to keep out of each others’ way on a screaming broad reach from Arch (the turning mark below the pub) to Altnaharrie (the turning mark beside what used to be a pub until quite recently).
An R in the name O
K, I am building a plywood boat. There. I’ve said it. Now, can we just move on? What’s on the agenda this month? (Actually late April,
such are CB’s deadlines). April in Ullapool means boat launching time as a collection of rusty, highly dangerous trailers are trundled from the club compound down the beach, there to await the incoming tide.
Runaway trailers are a recurring theme of launch day
at the Royal Loch Broom Sailing Club. Oh, didn’t I tell you? In honour of the royal wedding, a select number of clubs were secretly granted the royal warrant. No one was to breathe a word until after the ceremony, attended incognito by the commodore of the soon-to-be elevated club and his good lady wife. (She wore a fetching blue hat trimmed in silk, but I am no connoisseur of couture). So, down at the Royal Loch Broom, April was all
activity. As I write there have been no runaway trailers, and only one failed wheel bearing. The last of the Flying Fifteens hurtled down the pier mid-month, after its
Secret, wedding-related, elevation for Adrian’s local club
The club is in the process of a radical facelift to reflect its new status, for you never know Who may drop in at any time. There was a Chinook helicopter overhead on Saturday last, which may mean a Visit is imminent. One hopes the Palace will give us a few days’ notice to fix the loo seat, eradicate the damp in the back wall and make sure the steps to the viewing platform meet health and safety. In other respects we are ready to welcome the royal couple, and have pledged to control the handful of republican members who ostentatiously refer to it still as the
Not-the-royal Loch Broom Sailing Club. They are also putting it about that the prefix ‘Royal’ has nothing at all to do with The Wedding, but is there to reflect the fact that committee meetings in the clubhouse are invariably short on account of the pressing need to abandon the dank gloom for the warm bar of the nearby Royal Hotel.
“There has been jealous sniping from clubs that were passed over”
Monarchists among the members remain justly proud of the accolade, if a little disappointed that the paperwork has yet to arrive – an oversight on the part of hard-put royal officials no doubt, what with all the palaver at the Palace. Which is why we cannot, as yet, change the plain blue sign above the door of the clubhouse to one more, shall we say, regal? A little gold leaf perhaps?
Did I say I was building a plywood boat? Alas, no more space this month...
CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2011 67
CHARLOTTE WATTERS
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