Magnificent yachts that vanished from the west
THE First World War, and the depression that followed, changed a landscape and a way of life along Scotland’s West Coast forever.
Nowhere was this more in evidence than the almost total disappearance of a fleet of private yachts from virtually every sea loch and estuary between the Butt of Lewis and Wigtown Bay.
For almost a century before the Great War, anyone who owned a coastal estate kept a boat for pleasure. Commissioned by some of the country’s richest men, these stately yachts were symbols of wealth and power and provided much local employment, both afloat and ashore.
Many were built along the lines of clipper ships, with ornate and old-fashioned cutwater prows topped off with bowsprits and terminating in attractive rising sterns. Generally, they were white and carried rigging with swept-back masts for show and naval tradition. Although these yachts were more than capable of undertaking long voyages, they generally stayed close to the coast except in late autumn when many of them followed the sun to the Baltic and the Mediterranean.
Most yacht owners north of the Clyde belonged to the prestigious Royal Highland Yacht Club, established in Oban in 1881. Every September, before turning south, sometimes upwards of 100 of these magnificent vessels would gather in Oban Bay where their owners partied as if they were already on the Riviera. During the day they took part in regattas in the Sound of Mull or attended the Argyllshire Gathering to listen to the pipes and to watch kilted supermen throw things up and down a field from the comfort of the heavily-tweeded members’ enclosure. And, as the sun sank behind the Morvern hills on a clear summer’s evening, every yacht owner illuminated Oban Bay with a brilliant firework display before going ashore with their guests to attend the glittering Argyllshire Gathering and yacht club balls.
Of all these yachts, the Mingary, Sanda, Rannoch and Minona were among the most impressive privately owned vessels sailing the Hebrides. All four were designed and built to the highest standards and all carried Lloyd’s top 100A1 classification, which helped to maintain their high resale values and reduce insurance premiums as a well-found yacht was less risk.
The owner of the Mingary was Charles Dunell Rudd of Ardnamurchan, vice partner and co-founder of De Beers and Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd and vice commodore of the RHYC. The Mingary was designed by G L Watson & Co, of Glasgow, who produced some of the largest and most elegant steam yachts of all time for an international clientele which included most of the crowned heads of Europe.
Built in Troon in 1899, by the Ailsa Ship Building Co Ltd and named after a medieval castle on Rudd’s 55,000-acre estate, the Mingary was 187ft long, 27ft broad and drew slightly less than 15ft. She had a steel hull and weighed 639 tons. Her captain was Daniel Mackinnon from Kylerhea on Skye with the crew almost all coming from the estate. The 1901 National Census shows seven crew members aboard her as she lay at her moorings in Salen Bay, Loch Sunart, ready to take the Rudds out at a moment’s notice.
However, for a cruise to the Mediterranean in the spring of 1911, a further 18 were added, including two French chefs and a piper. Little wonder it was said that the yacht cost more to run than the rest of the estate put together.
In January 1915, Rudd leased the Mingary to the Admiralty. Her upper decks were armourplated and two guns were fitted which enabled her to defend herself against a German submarine off the Yorkshire coast.
When the war ended in 1918 she was offered back to the family. As Charles Rudd had died in 1916, they declined and she was sold the following year.
She retained her name until December 1925 when new Turkish owners renamed her Sevintch. Two years later she collided with another vessel off Boz Burnu in the Aegean Sea and sank.
When George Herbert Strutt of Makeney, Derbyshire, whose family founded the cotton manufacturing industry in Great Britain, bought Kingairloch Estate near Ardgour in 1902, he inherited a small steam cutter called the Satellite (26 tons) from the previous owner. Too small for his requirements, he purchased the Maretanza and renamed her Sanda, after Glen Sanda on the estate.
The new steel-hulled Sanda was designed by P Isaac, a comparatively unknown maritime architect, and built in 1902 by J P Rennoldson & Sons of South Shields. She weighed 151 tons, was 152ft long, 22ft broad and 13ft deep. She had electric light and was used for deer stalking expeditions to Glensanda, collecting visitors in Oban, and cruising as far west as St Kilda to buy tweed for the Strutt family and their staff.
In the same year as Rudd leased Mingary to the Admiralty for the war effort, Strutt magnanimously loaned them Sanda and she was quickly converted into an armed escort. Nine months later, she was sunk by German gunfire off the Belgian coast with the loss of many lives.
After the Sanda came the Herga, the Galma and the Goolack. The Galma was built on Kerrera with an aft deck specially designed to allow the Strutts and their guests to practice reels on their way to the Argyllshire Gathering Ball. The Galma’s engines were so loud it was said that when she started up at her mooring in Loch Choire, the noise could be heard in Oban – 14 miles away.
George Herbert Strutt was envied not only for his fine yachts but also for the man he employed to look after them. Few captains were more widely respected and better known on the western seaboard than Captain Alexander MacDonald. ‘Captain Sandy’, as he was affectionately called, had been with the Strutts since they purchased Kingairloch until his untimely death on January 5, 1928, in a cycling accident on his way from his house at Glengalmadale to the pier at Kingairloch, where he was going to inspect the Herga at anchor in Loch Choire.
Captain Sandy was the son of a well-known farming family on the rugged Ardnish Peninsula near Arisaig. He went to sea as a young man and gained extensive experience racing high-class yachts in the famous Cowes and Clyde regattas. Before going to Kingairloch, he was captain of Lord Howard of Glossop’s yacht on Loch Moidart.
It says a great deal for the natural intelligence and aptitude of the West Highlanders that despite living in isolated places and with no access to a formal education, Alexander MacDonald and Daniel Mackinnon gained the friendship and respect of such powerful and important public figures.
The Rannoch’s owner was Thomas Valentine Smith of Ardtornish Estate on the Morvern Peninsula and a trustee of the RHYC. She was a 550-ton beauty, financed on the proceeds of gin and wool and designed by Cox & King of London, which was especially known for its luxury steam and motor yachts.
The Rannoch was built in 1902 by Ramage & Ferguson, Leith – arguably one of the finest boat builders in the world at the time.
Named after a river on Ardtornish Estate, the Rannoch had a steel hull and was 184ft in length, 25ft broad and drew only 14ft to allow her to pass over the shallow bar at the entrance to Loch Aline. A three-cylinder, 124hp engine ensured a fast cruising speed and her interior, illuminated by electricity, was the ultimate in gracious living.
Smith died in 1906 and the Rannoch passed to his sister, Gertrude, and her son, Gerard Craig Sellar, who was Commodore of the RHYC from 1913 until his death in a railway carriage at Callander in 1929. The Rannoch’s subsequent history is unknown but it is thought she too disappeared in the Great War.
Robert Stewart of Ingliston was a prosperous Edinburgh businessman and a distinguished yachtsman. In 1882, he purchased Kinlochmoidart Estate at the head of Loch Moidart in West Inverness-shire, probably for its historical connection with Prince Charles Edward Stewart, who stayed there for several days before raising the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan on August 19, 1745.
Land access was difficult so Messrs Ramage & Ferguson Ltd of Leith were commissioned to build the 250-ton Minona to the designs of G L Watson & Co. Launched in April 1900, her dimensions were 129ft in length by 21ft broad and 12ft deep and powered by a set of triple expansion engines. On Robert Stewart’s death in 1909, the Minona was sold to George Coates, later Baron Glentanar, of the cotton thread dynasty from Paisley. Thereafter she passed through a string of owners, including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and the flamboyant Peter de Savary, who used her as a floating headquarters for his 1983 America’s Cup Challenge.
Renamed the Kalizma (after the Burtons’ children Kate, Liza and Maria), the Minona was restored in 2006 and is one of the oldest and finest classic motor yachts afloat today.