Note: I originally wrote up the following for my sailing club's newletter. Rather than write another account, I'm copying it to here with some minor edits for the different audience.
Sailing in the Southern Hebrides
For over a decade I’ve been
getting emails from Classic Sailing UK (https://classic-sailing.com/
), a travel company that provides a central location for classic and tall ships
to post their trips offered to passengers, as well as some training courses. I
signed up for a trip on a schooner to Iceland – but it was during the pandemic
and it didn’t happen. But in early summer this year, clicking through on the ad
and browsing through their trips, I decided to go for it. I booked a trip
leaving in just over a month, in Scotland. Classic Sailing serves as the
initial contact, but once a trip is booked, the remainder of your interactions
are with the ship’s operators directly. The week-long itinerary was beginning
from one small town on the west coast of Scotland and ending on another. It was
only feasible for me because of the excellent Scottish rail system, enabling me
to fly non-stop between DC and Edinburgh and then take the train to and from
the ship.
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Under sail.
I could sit like this for hours, watching the sea and the sails.
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The
Eye of the Wind is a
100-year-old steel brig (or brigantine, nobody seems sure) owned by Germans and
flagged in Jersey, UK’s answer to the Cayman Islands. It has a rich history –
built as a coastal freighter, and kept busy in the Baltic trade under power
until the 1950s. In the 1960s, a bunch of Australian enthusiasts bought her as
little more than a hull, and converted her back to square ship sailing glory. She
spent decades down in the South Pacific as a training and holiday ship, sailing
around the world once and Cape Horn twice. She was the star of the otherwise
unremarkable 1996 movie White Squall with Jeff Bridges, the story of a training
ship full of New England school boys that ran into a bad weather phenomenon.
Around the turn of this century, the
Eye came back up to Europe and
eventually ended up with the present owners. They use her for some corporate
training events, and otherwise she plies the tall ship passenger cruising
trade. Typically, she is in European waters in the summer, and spends winters
in the Caribbean.
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Leaving harbor, motoring out a long channel
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I’ve done a number of voyages on
the
Pride of Baltimore II, as have many other club members. This trip on
the
Eye is a whole different thing, a pleasure cruise, luxurious by
comparison to the
Pride. We were clearly passengers, invited to help
with some of the ship functions, but not integrated with the crew. There are
2-person cabins, each with their own head and shower (a LOT of plumbing to
tend!). I had a cabin to myself as the ship was not fully booked. There is a
main-deck enclosed galley and dining lounge, with windows to observe the
passing scene in comfort, as well as a below-deck saloon, with a library and
skylights. Because of the superstructures on deck, there were also many places to
sit comfortably outside, some very sheltered from the wind and the rain.
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The quarterdeck, a place to have an overview
Both crew and fellow passengers are here
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Look at how many ropes to pull on and coil!
"You get a rope, and you get a rope, and you get a rope!
Every body gets a rope!"
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The pace was leisurely. We roused
for a European breakfast at 8 am, and afterwards the crew prepared for sailing
while the captain went over the plan of the day with us, as well spending time
on topics such as navigation and the ship’s rigging and handling. We would get
underway by 9:30 or 10, with all the passengers invited to join in the sail
handling. With many small square sails, there are a LOT of lines to pull,
bracing the yards to the wind even when under power, and raising the yards and
lowering and trimming the sails and furling the sails. The crew would always
invite the passengers to help with this, and hauling on lines and coiling them were our
main tasks. Typically we would motor in the morning until we reached the right
angle to set the sails, and were underway until we reached a harbor at 4, 5 or
6 in the afternoon. We would anchor (only laid alongside at the beginning and
end and one other night), and we could then dinghy to shore to walk, explore,
and visit pubs. We would go back for dinner on board, and then the hardier
passengers and crew went back ashore for an evening out, though I generally
crashed right away. (According to my watch, I slept a decent total amount each night, but got little deep, restorative, sleep. I was exhausted each night.) At this high northern latitude, we had 16 hours of daylight each day.
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A village we stopped at
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The weather was dreadful. It
rained every day, but not all day every day. We would have drizzle, then brief
pouring rain, then the sun would come out, and then it would repeat – all in
the space of an hour or two. It was in the 50s for temperature, and reached the
mid-60s some days. (But below decks, the lounge and cabins had heat when the
generator was running. Besides our comfort, clothes could dry well.) During a dry spell, when I had shed some layers while
hauling lines, a rogue wave came splashing aboard and doused me thoroughly from
head to toe. After that, I just lived in my foulies all the time we were
underway. I blessed my sea boots, even though they were a pain to pack and
carry from home. I was aware in advance roughly what the weather would be like, and had brought
plenty of appropriate clothing, so I never felt cold.
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A crewmember (short guy in the middle) prepares to take
the Swiss guy and the young brother up into the rigging.
Harnesses are worn by all.
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My fellow passengers were six
Germans, one Swiss German speaker, and me. Four of them were a family - a brother and sister in their 20s, their father, and the father's brother, none with significant sailing experience. There were two hearty old guys in their 80s, who have done many similar voyages (though they said most were to warmer places!) The Swiss guy had never been on a boat before, but had wanted to do it forever. He was in heaven the whole time. The two young people got seasick, and had a bad couple of days, but then adapted (and/or the meds kicked in) and had a good time. There were nine crew, with a German captain,
an Italian cook (yay!) and a mix of Danes, Swedes, Scots and Australians. A
couple of the crew were “trainees”. The
Eye is a formal training ship,
and apparently that means the trainees can earn credit towards various professional
certifications. Everyone spoke English well, but of course the German speakers
spoke to each other in German (of which my vocabulary consists only of “bier,
bitte”, surprisingly useful). The food was plentiful, hardy, and flavorful,
with freshly baked brown bread every day. We had a European breakfast each day - porridge, cold meats and cheese, bread, butter and jam. Lunches and dinners were hot and starch heavy: several pastas, lasagna, couscous, risotto, with small cut up vegetables and meat mixed in. There was a cash bar available with
beer, wine, and some whiskeys. Gotta love those Europeans and their wine.
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See the small boat (slightly bigger than mine I think)
It came over to see us, then veered off.
I cannot imagine going out in these conditions in my boat!
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The sailing was terrific! The wind
never dropped below 15 knots, was mostly between 20-25 knots, and up to 35
knots on a couple of days. We left from one small town on the west coast of
Scotland, and sailed to and through a myriad of islands in the southern
Hebrides. The initial strategy, taking three days to unfold, was to position ourselves for a rounding of the
Mull of Kintyre, which is in sight of northern Ireland, and has fierce currents
and winds. The captain showed us how he worked with the almanacs and weather
forecasts to get us to the Mull at slack water and on a reach. It was a long,
fierce day of sailing and sail handling, a lot of fun. I have a great respect
for the small boat sailors who tackle this area.
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Most of my pictures were taken during bright intervals.
Those clouds there brought more rain within the hour.
(I wouldn't want you to think the weather was better than it was!)
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The Scottish coastal scenery is
fabulous! Islands, lighthouses, castles, fields, and many many sheep. The
villages we visited were small, had old parts, but were quite modern and
prosperous in many ways. There were whiskey (and rum and gin) distilleries around,
but our schedule did not allow us to visit any, sadly. We did get a little bit of light hiking in, over hills and around bends. Plenty of sheep, a few terrific dogs, and actual Scottish heather growing on the hills.
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We started in Greenock and ended in Oban.
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Finally, the trip had to end. We got to our end point on Friday night, and anchored out. The next morning, we motored up to the dock and we left.
Next: the Aftermath
