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Glasgow Fair at Tighnabruaich

Captain Alan Jamieson – a man of many talents

 

Report and pictures by Stuart Cameron (SDC) - Additional pictures by Alistair Black (AB)

 

Many people will have seen a new face on the bridge of Waverley over the past few weeks. The man in charge has been Captain Alan Jamieson of Edinburgh who came to Waverley Excursions from Arklow Shipping in springtime. Many of Waverley’s regular enthusiasts have been impressed at how quickly Captain Jamieson has mastered the peculiarities of the paddler and made it look as if he had been aboard for much longer.

 

During Waverley’s weekly stopover at Tighnabruaich on Saturday 13th July (the traditional Glasgow Fair weekend) Captain Jamieson demonstrated that he has other skills apart from those obvious in the running of the ship.

 

Regular crew member Iain ‘Corky’ McCorkindale launched his model ‘steamer’ Thor into the Kyles at Tighnabruaich pier. After supervising the ‘amateurs’ handling of Thor Captain Jamieson took control of Thor to demonstrate how the professionals do it – thus keeping his hand in for his spells on the Balmoral – although it was obvious that the twin screw Thor handles somewhat differently from Balmoral.

 

While in the command of ‘others’ Thor had a contretemps with a giant jelly fish which necessitated her ‘drydocking’ on Tighnabruaich pier for removal of entangled jellyfish parts by a suitably rubber-glove clad Chief Officer Luke Davies. As a diversion Iain Quinn grappled with the intricacies of Thor’s radio control unit.

 

Meantime, Captain Jamieson was practicing another of his talents on Colin MacDonald’s (a regular musician on Waverley’s Clyde sailings) spare accordion.

 

If you study the pictures of Thor you may detect that she has a Waverley hull (minus paddleboxes and sponsons, a Waverley forward deck shelter and the aft deck shelter but fitted ‘back to front. The ensemble is topped by a scaled version of the John Brown funnel for the former Royal Yacht Britannia. You can’t see on the photos the rotating radar scanner. Sounds a bit of a mixture but the resultant vessel looks pretty good.

Iain McCorkindale’s model Thor heading for an encounter with one of Tighnabruaich’s jellyfish (Photo SDC)

 

 

A broadside view of Thor (Photo SDC)

 

Corky and Alistair Black discuss important issues of Thor’s navigation as Captain Jamieson supervises. (Photo SDC)

Captain Jamieson takes command of Thor – his other command awaits (Photo Alistair Black)

Steward Neil Rolland takes command of Thor as Corky supervises and Alistair Black gets ready to Photo (Photo SDC)

Chief Officer Luke Davies untangles Thors twin screws (Photo AB)

Iain Quinn stuggles with his antenna (Photo SDC)

 

 

Meantime, Captain Jamieson entertains (Photo AB)

 

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