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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 Waverleys 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
Waverleys 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 Thors
radio control unit.
Meantime,
Captain Jamieson was practicing another of his talents on Colin
MacDonalds (a regular musician on Waverleys 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 cant see on the
photos the rotating radar scanner. Sounds a bit of a mixture but
the resultant vessel looks pretty good.
Iain
McCorkindales model Thor heading for an encounter with one
of Tighnabruaichs jellyfish (Photo SDC)
A
broadside view of Thor (Photo SDC)
Corky
and Alistair Black discuss important issues of Thors
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)