Past & Present
A long time ago the boat's festival had a kit to build a boat.
A St Ayle's skiff. Nobody had heard of it.
They got a bunch of quines to build it, under the expert advice of
Alex Slater, Mike Anavi, and Pete Danks.
And we laughed a lot, and people who would never have met made
new friendships.
We made the boat, and a trailer, and we painted them Pink!!!
And we laughed a lot.
Once it was made, nobody had a scooby how to row, let alone cox.
We spoke to our new friends in Ullapool, the nearest club to us at the time.
And we went up to learn to row. And we made new friends and had fun.
The mannies saw how ace it was, so they also build a boat. In 10 weeks
instead of 10 months. The Soy Loon and it we was painted lime green. But the Quine
built by the quines is the far superior boat.....
So we launched the Soy quine, and we learned lots, sometimes
we learned by mistakes, but we grew. And we began to compete.
Four months after the launch we took our boat and went to Ullapool
to the first world championships. With clubs from Holland, from
Tasmania and all over. It was a week of glorious sunshine, making
new friends from all over, socialising and of course rowing.
We have since gone to regattas all over - Avoch, Cromarty, Findhorn, Anstruther,
Port Seton, Queensferry - rowing under the bridges to mention but a few.
We have had crews enter Castle to crane, a race from Dumbarton Castle
to the Finniston Crane, a long 13 mile race.
We went to the 2nd Word championships at Strangford Lough in N Ireland, and
the the third one at Stranraer.
We also do fundraisers, pub quizzes, soup n sweets, row n rolls, 80s discos etc etc.
But its not all about competing, its about getting out in the boat, and blowing
away the cobwebs. And having fun.
Watch this space!!!!
