All dressed up
Sailors never look far for an excuse to party
Tidying up a file of photos on my desktop, I found a beautiful one of the sort of fun we used to be able to have with boats: a flotilla led by the Aith Lifeboat. It was 27 June 2009 and Delting Marina was finally officially opened. We’d been using it for at least a couple of years, but this was the big party. It was just under seven miles due north from our own Aith marina, and Karima S and I were determined to join the fun.
I did suggest to my non-sailing husband, Philip, that he might like to come too. “It’ll be good,” I said encouragingly. “How long will it all take?” he asked, warily. “Are you just sailing up to Brae then coming straight back?”
I admitted that well, no, actually, I wasn’t. I’d sail up, join the official flotilla, no doubt do a bit of chatting in cockpits, help sell lifeboat souvenirs for a bit, then come home in a leisurely fashion, in time for dinner, probably, though there’d be a barbecue, so I might not be very hungry.
“Or,” I said, “you could just drive up and see the fun.”
“Wouldn’t see much from the shore,” he said, neatly; he hadn’t yet perfected the look that says ‘Waste a good day hanging around marinas? You must be joking!’
It turned out the most glorious of summer days with a perfect sailing breeze, a gusty Force 4 from the east, meaning I’d be close-hauled all the way. I put one reef in the main before we left the berth, to keep my boat manageable, and off we headed. The similarly-sized motorboat in the next berth (belonging to my former headteacher) came out just after I’d got the sails up. I didn’t realise it, but he’d expected to catch us easily, and couldn’t. “You were going at 7.1 knots,” he told me on the pier later.
It certainly felt like we were flying. It was a cracking sail, north up Aith Voe, through the Sound of Houbansetter and into Busta Voe. It got slightly hairy as we went through Cole Deep, where there’s always an extra force of wind, and by the time we’d made it to within half a mile of the marina I was quite glad to drop the sails and lie a-hull. Suddenly it stopped being windy, and turned into a T-shirt occasion. I had a peaceful cup of tea, bobbing gently opposite the rock called the Burgastoo, and waited for something to happen.
Soon the boats began coming out of the marina, all far more dressed than I’d managed – I had only one small Shetland flag, which suddenly looked even smaller. There was bunting strung from mast tops , several sets of signal flags, red dusters, saltires and Shetland flags galore, in all sizes, and, flown triumphantly from one yacht whose owners sported stripey T-shirts, an extra-large pirate flag. People had come from all over: I counted 12 yachts and 18 others, and a bonny, colourful sight we were too, with all those banners fluttering in the breeze.
The roar of an engine in the distance signalled the lifeboat, and it wasn’t long before we saw two white plumes of wave, with her orange superstructure and navy hull between them. She glided to a halt half-way up the voe. We all motored up to fall into a vee formation behind her, and were led triumphantly in.
The ‘sailing’ bit over, it was party time. That was the summer of the pink gins, aka gin with Angostura bitters in it, so I had one cautious glassful aboard Cynara (I still had to get home), then went off to listen to the speeches, do a bit of chatting and enjoy the atmosphere. I got food at the barbecue (Delting BC takes its barbies seriously) and helped out at the lifeboat souvenirs stall.
I was overcautious on the way home. I put in two reefs, forgetting that the wind was now a very nice beam reach, and found I was in what felt like a flat calm. I shook them out again and went through Cole Deep on my ear, until I rolled half the jib away, and surged home in good order.
It was a really fun occasion, but I think I had the best day of all of us – I’d sandwiched the fun between two cracking sails.
‘A colourful sight we were, with all those banners fluttering’