Ullapool Coastal Rowing

An impression of Ulla’s makeover for her Royal Row – so you know what to look out for on the telly.

Saturday 2nd June, 1030 am – Trial rowing sessions in Cul Mor and Jubilee cake sale, on the pier.

Sunday 3rd June at 2 pm –  Fancy Dress rowing in the Seaforth, ‘Ulla’ will be beginning the row down the Thames in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant, meanwhile at the Seaforth, come and row along / try to beat ‘Ulla’. Jubilee theme fancy dress, prizes for kids and adults, Jubilee cocktails, Pimms, fancy cakes. Raffle prizes (1) Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club Membership voucher (2) A spectacular hamper of local produce including items kindly donated by Ullapool Smokehouse, Ullapool Bakery, SRCFoods, Heather K lobster, The Seaforth (A Ross & Cromarty Malt) plus many more. (3) A Beth Stockl bag with Made in Ullapool candles and handmade Lochbroom Soap  generously donated by Cathy MacKenzie.  Get planning your outfit now !

After a fairly late evening and a bit of sleep the boats were put back in the water for the first running of the Tanera cup race.

On the Beach before the campers stirred

Some crews were all raced out and elected to take a leisurely row across the water to Tanera allowing those with some competitive energy left to lead the way. Others took the easy route (although the gymnastics needed to embark and disembark were a tad challenging for some) and paid the ferryman for passage.

On the Tanera Ferry

This meant we were well ahead of the Skiffs to the destination, the Tanera Post Office.

Waiting on the Tanera Cup Victors

Once the Spectators and Skiffs all arrived we all enjoyed a light Brunch and the more energetic did a little island exploration.  Tanera is a different world and well worth visiting.

After lunch the Skiffs made their individual way back to Bardentarbet to prepare for the long haul home while the host of spectators enjoyed the scenery while waiting for the ferry.

A distant Coigach from Tanera

The Anchorage and Tanera Post Office

Awaiting the return Ferry

A super end to a glorious weekend.

Bardentarbet Bay – click for the bigger picture

Coigach Community Rowing put on a really rather Good Regatta over the weekend. Taking on board lessons from last years damp & breezy event they remembered to book some decent weather – given the last couple of months a miracle in itself!

Everybody who was able to go had a really good time in a glorious setting.

and the setting was magnificent

Coigach pretty well swept the board, demonstrating a deep understanding of the local tidal currents – fascinating watching the changing strategy as the tide ebbed and flowed through the day. We shall have to visit the Coigach more often as part of our training regime .

A toast for our Victorious neighbors – Coigach

 Port Seton & Cockenzie brought a new strip along which added to the day’s colour.

PS&C adding a splash of colour

Our own rocket ship ‘Ulla’ is still being prettified for her sate with the Thames on 3rd June so was substituted with ‘Cul Mor’, the UHS boat. She wasn’t first but she wasn’t last (too often).

The School boat

 a random slideshow will show what it was like better than words

Click to view slideshow.

Congratulations to our Coigach friends on the quality of their event – and showing the rest of us how to win.

Sunday’s pix to follow

ULLAPOOL COASTAL ROWING CLUB

FUNDRAISING AUCTION

Ullapool coastal rowing club have put together an auction of exciting items to auction to raise funds for the club. The auction will run from Monday 14th of May and will end on the evening of August 11th at the Ullapool Regatta. Anyone who wishes to bid on any item please email your highest bid to kimbuckthorp(at)live.co.uk (replace the (at) with @), please leave your personal details, the auction item number and your highest bid. Alternatively please call 01854 655275 . This post will be updated with the latest bid on a daily basis and as we get near closing time as they come in.

 GOOD LUCK!

ITEM 1: ONE DAY HIND STALKING ON STRONE ESTATE, LOCHBROOM.
 You will win the opportunity to stalk Hinds on Strone Estate. You will meet in the morning with the Estate Stalker and practice your rifle shooting on a target before heading out to the hill. Once at the hill you will pursue through the hill in the Argo Cat eventually stalking by foot into the Hinds. When ready you will have the opportunity to shoot yourself or if you prefer the Stalker will shoot for you. You will then have a complimentary dram and proceed back down the hill to home. Date will be arranged with the highest bidder for the Hind Season 2012.
KINDLY DONATED BY FOICH ESTATE

STARTING BID £80.00

ITEM 2: ONE WHOLE RED HIND.
One Red Hind skinned and quartered. Highest bidder will receive item during the Hind Season 2012.
KINDLY DONATED BY INVERBROOM ESTATE.

STARTING BID £60.00.

ITEM 3: ONE DAY FISHING FOR TROUT ON BENMORE ETATE, ASSYNT.
 A day trip for one to fish for trout on the beautiful Benmore Estate during May/June 2013
KINDLY DONATED BY DAVID RANKIN OF BENMORE ESTATE.

STARTING BID £60.00

ITEM 4: A TRIP FOR TWO SEA FISHING LOCHBROOM AND ULLAPOOL AREA.
A trip aboard the Orkney Coastliner to fish the surrounding Ullapool area. All equipment will be provided just bring yourselves and some lunch. Date to be arranged for summer 2012.
KINDLY DONATED BY ‘I Bucked One and Kim Bucked Two’ OWNERS.

STARTING BID £45.00

ITEM 5: ONE WHOLE SIKA HIND.
One Sika Hind skinned and quartered.
DONATED BY BUMBLE OF GENCALVIE ESTATE.

STARTING BID £70

ITEM 6: ONE HAND PAINTED WOODEN HOUSE SIGN.
The winning bidder will have their house name or number hand painted on to a choice of different wood and varnished for a long lasting finish. Will be ready for bidder as soon as the paint dries!

STARTING BID £30.00

A small and dedicated team have been beavering away in a draughty shed situated somewhere in Ullapool to get ‘Ulla’ fit to place before the Queen during the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. Even the normal inhabitants of the shed have been doing their best to ensure good luck for Ulla.

Evidence of the good wishes of the local pigeons

Ulla and her trolley get a fresh lick of paint

One bit of kit that Ulla has to borrow when she need protection is fenders – we are getting new traditional knitted rope ones. A number of members have taken home fender kits and the first to finish one was

Sue with the first of our new hand knitted fenders to protect our sheer from the other boats in the Thames Fleet

are off to St Kilda. Wylde Swan, a large topsail Schooner has been visiting Ullapool for the last few weeks and her final excursion before returning to the European mainland was a sail to St Kilda. A good few of the Ullapool Skiffies took advantage and sailed off into the distance. All this is really just an excuse to post a few snaps of a pretty boat and crew that is, for the moment, slightly Skiff related.

Last Saturday saw the start of the annual return to the Sea of the LBSC fleet of bigger boats. As luck would have it, Cul Mor, the only Skiff available to our Rowers while ‘Ulla’ has her royal makeup applied, was returning just as one of the flying 15′s was going in. So a rope was quickly flung and the UCRC crew were able to assist by towing the Flying 15 off her trolley.

St Ayles Skiff World Championships – 8th to 14th July 2013

The Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club is delighted to announce that Ullapool has been selected by the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association as the venue for the first World Championship for Coastal Rowing using the St Ayles Skiff. With the astonishing growth of St Ayles Skiff building and rowing by communities internationally the time is right to run a Skiffie Worlds to give an opportunity for Rowers from across the Globe to meet in friendly competition.

 Ullapool, on the banks of Loch Broom, a large sheltered sea Loch in the Northwest of Scotland, is an ideal location to host such an event. With an existing infrastructure developed to cater for the needs of visitors and great community experience in running large cultural events SkiifieWorlds will be well within the capacity of the village.

 Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club together with their partner organisations, the Loch Broom Sailing Club Loch Broom Sailing Club , Coigach Community Rowing and the Ullapool Harbour Trustees look forward to welcoming visiting crews to our magnificent waters. A full programme of maritime and landbased activities and entertainment is planned culminating with the Prizegiving followed by a boisterous Ceilidh Dance on Saturday 13th.

 For more information please visit the dedicated SkiffieWorlds Website, a work in progress which will grow in detail as we get closer to the event.

UCRC started the new season of Coffee on the Pier in fine style today. An indication of the growth of the Club was seen in the groaning table loaded with fine baking from our members. It would be invidious to single out any one contribution but mention has to be made of a fantastic representation of Ulla in sweet confection by Kimberly, so good that nobody had the heart to take a knife to it – instead it was the feature prize in a short order raffle.

Kimberley's cake - Sweet Ulla

After a slow start – Shore Street is seldom so deserted – word got around and a throng of locals and visitors soon filled the big tent on the Pier sampling the goodies on offer. This was the first time we had put our new Commemorative Diamond Jubilee Mugs and Tea Towels on sale – clearly an attractive item judging by the number removed from stock.

Ulla was , as is usual at these events, available for interested people to have a trip out onto Loch Broom. Once the rain eased off a steady stream of keen galley slaves presented themselves for a trial row under the benevolent guidance of our Convener, Topher Dawson.

Topher, it has to be reported, withstood the temptation of all those delicious cupcakes, flapjacks, lemon drizzle slices and other fancies too numerous to mention with great resilience and the diet was not breached so far as could be seen.

We also had the pleasure of Chris Duff’s company, Chris has returned to Loch Broom to prepare his distinctively orange boat ‘Northern Reach’ for his resumed attempt to row from Scotland to Iceland.

Chris Duff in Northern Reach

He tried last year but suffered the most appalling weather, the wind was constantly against him – that is when it wasn’t  blowing a hooley sufficient to prevent him from going to sea. For full details on Chris, his Boat and the adventure please do go and look at his website. Chris brought ‘Northern Reach’ over to the Harbour Pontoon and with extraordinary generosity encouraged members of the Rowing and Sailing Clubs to have a try – it is safe to say that all who went for a row were well smitten, one son was overheard advising his father that a similar craft should be placed on the shopping list forthwith. After the cake had mostly been eaten and the boats put away Chris gave a lecture on his plans and last years experience which was highly absorbing – one thing that became abundantly clear was that this is no lightly considered undertaking, Chris has carefully considered the risks of such deep water rowing excursions and very intelligently designed the boat and its equipment to reduce those risks to the absolute minimum. It is a voyage far more about the journey and the people along the way than any macho record-setting attempt. It appears that Chris has refined Ocean Rowing to a fine art form, no clunky high volume boat here, rather a svelte and easygoing craft fully sorted for her design purpose. We in Ullapool Rowing feel privileged to have met and got to know Chris and will be watching the progress of his journey with keen interest. A word of thanks to all who baked, manned the tent and supervised the rowing, thanks also to all who came and donated so generously and especial thanks to Chris Duff for letting us play with his boat and giving such a spellbinding talk later.

Stocks of the first item in the new seasons line of must have domestic accoutrements have arrived in the UCRC warehouse. A short-lived opportunity to acquire one of the elegant limited edition souvenir Diamond Jubilee Mugs lovingly crafted in bone china at Saturday’s Coffee and Cake session on the Pier (10:00 – 14:00). You can also enjoy a trip out into Loch Broom in Ulla and find out for yourself why so many of Ullapool’s Lasses (and a few lads) are looking so much slimmer and fitter after what should have been the usual winter of indulgence.

The new mugs will create a life long memory of the part Ullapool played in celebrating Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee with ‘Ulla’ being selected to join the Thames River Pageant on the 3rd June. Incorporating the official Diamond Jubilee insignia with a tasteful illustration of Ulla on home waters the Mugs are available at UCRC events as well as from the Captain’s Cabin. If you see Ulla out on the Loch why not stop her and buy one?

Also due in for Saturday’s gastronomic treat are the new Diamond Jubilee Tea Towels – just in time for the washing up!

After a couple of seasons rowing experience we are completely convinced of the need to reduce weight wherever possible. To this end we are about to embark on some new super lightweight composite oars, plans imported at huge expense from the USA, we have even been supported by a visiting consultant expert in the designs and use of the oars - we have checked the Rules meticulously and can find nothing therein to provide an obstacle to our intentions. The Crew have played their part over the winter training regime to reduce their contribution to the overall load – one crew member in particular has revealed an astonishing loss of 6350.4g,, hasn’t he done well,  and the racing season still a month away, lets just hope he doesn’t support next Saturday’s Kaffee und Kuchen morning too vigorously. Apart from lightweight oars we have been considering other aspects of the boat – Hugh Mackenzie from North Berwick has asked “Do you think there is a case for carrying buoyancy bags in bow and stern” in response to our MOB exercise last autumn, well we apologise Hugh for our tardy response and indeed think they are a good idea, we also think having specially made buoyancy bags under each thwart will be useful but we are going one step further – anything that reduces the boats weight is highly desirable so we are going to use existing expertise within the club to introduce lighter than air technology  (nothing in the rules says we can’t !) we are going to fill our buoyancy bags with Helium (we did think of Hydrogen but thought that might be a bit too explosive for the Association to accept) – calculations indicate that this will have the effect of reducing the boats weight by at least one large crew member and reduce the waterline beam by a full inch. And we all know what reduced WL beam means, less wetted surface area which, in turn, results in more knots. We will also incorporate old tyre valves (scrap from the local garage) into the outboard section of the oar loom so we can balance the oars by filling them with helium – so much more effective than stuffing lead into the handles. So this summarises where we are with our attempts at pushing the boundaries of received wisdom – no doubt there will be a few Luddites who will raise spurious objections but as long as it results in a higher performing craft, well surely that’s what matters in the end. We think that by sharing our performance enhancements at this early stage other Skiffies will be able to develop their own variation in time for the forthcoming season.

What with Rowing with the Royals, defending our Gold and raiding a few more Regattas later this year ‘Ulla’ is in high demand for practice. Last Sunday saw a brief appearance of Icing Sugared Hills as a welcome change from the Howling Winds and Monsoon like Rains (no drought here) which have characterised this winter and a couple of crews grabbed the chance to go out for a brisk row on Loch Broom.

A crisp Winters morning

As usual click on the thumbnail for the bigger picture