Scotland Part B: Actually Sailing!

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.

Under sail.
I could sit like this for hours, watching the sea and the sails.

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.

Leaving harbor, motoring out a long channel

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.

The quarterdeck, a place to have an overview
Both crew and fellow passengers are here

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!"

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.

A village we stopped at

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!)

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.

We started in Greenock and ended in Oban.

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