Rally Report by Malcolm Higgs

Having circulated information concerning this rally to various press sources, the only one that I saw that used it was Sailing Today who I thought gave the JRA some nice coverage...

... In fairness I have to say that the content showed their wide knowledge and was not due to me. We did get some interesting calls as a result of this publicity. The weekend did not have the best of weather.

On Saturday morning when we met up there were only three boats and eight people. The wind was strong and the water choppy. None the less we took to the water and the VERTUE with its home made 'Reddish' sail soon showed the two 'Virgo's' a clean pair of heels and was soon hull down sailing south on The Clyde. Both ORCA and BUMPER reduced sail by two panels in the F5 wind as they sailed into a very choppy sea which had a bad effect on the stomach. CABER disappeared beyond Kip Marina but we turned back and I dropped another two panels for the return to Holy Loch Marina. As always the weather turned better once we were safely alongside the pontoons. After all the boats were back and we had settled down, a party of ten partook of the evening meal at The Holy Loch Inn which was, as always, very good.

Sunday was wet, and cloudy, then very wet,. After meeting and looking at it we made a unanimous decidion to give the sailing a miss. Instead we all piled into a car and had a day out at Irvine visiting the Scottish Boat Jumble. It was not raining there but it was still raining when we got back to base.

Monday dawned with blue skies, and bright sunshine. The rally was over but as ORCA started home towards Girvan we got out BUMPER and accompanied her for a couple of hours. There was very little wind but the temperature was up to 25C.

On the Tuesday and through to the weekend the daytime temperature remained at 25C or very close to it and there was a nice breeze for most of the time. This meant that Ian Morton sailed ORCA from Girvan on the Thursday/Friday immediately prior in lovely weather, and then had lovely weather for the return journey. This was undoubtedly a first, but, when the weather is good, and at this time it was better than the Mediterranean, it is wonderful.

This rally report was taken
from the Junk Rig Association Newsletter 51.