The main event of Westray’s year, organised by Westray Sailing Club.
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Thursday 27th, the shops are decidedly busier. I couldn’t park outside Rendall’s shop due to the parking area being chock-full of visitors’ cars. Even the two spaces by the petrol pump were in use so I parked on the road. The café seemed busy and strangers were filling the aisles, so very good for business.
https://www.facebook.com/wirendallshop
I grabbed what I wanted, paid and left to an empty car park. That was just after ten minutes in the shop and the visitors’ cars had vanished. That evening the Pierowall Hotel held a curry evening with proceeds going to the RNLI.
See www.pierowallhotel.co.uk and https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=pierowall%20hotel
Friday 28th. Friday has dawned foggy but by 11:00am it had cleared so that was a good sign. I had no reason to go to the village so stayed home all day, but I noticed an increase of walkers along the track getting their exercise.
Saturday 29th, the BIG DAY.
Well, it’s certainly not boiling hot today but there is a fair number of folks on the quayside. The crowd is outside the store where the RNLI ladies are selling hot soup, tea, sandwiches and fancies to the eager crowd. All the action is to the left of the photograph out to sea although there are three dinghies coming through the harbour entrance having completed their part of the particular race on just now. The handicapping system is a mystery to me but it works just fine.
Meanwhile in the inner harbour there were canoe lessons to be had, very popular for both young and old alike..
The trophies were handed out at the evening dance in the school hall which went on until the early hours of the morning as usual, and a good time was had by all.
Quote from Sam Harcus’s 2006 book Tight Sheets – Traditions and Tales
“The first local Regatta on record, held on 23rd June 1925, appears to have been originally organised by the local dignitaries to give it structure and credibility but has always been the ordinary man with a boat wishing to compete who has kept up the momentum over the last eighty years.”
N.B. in two years’ time it will be the centenary of the Westray Regatta.
Tight Sheets – Traditions and Tales by Sam Harcus is now out of print. However it has been digitised and made into an eBook. The plan is to make available to the public again but there are legal, copyright and distribution rights that have first to be cleared so when the time is right I shall advertise it in one of these posts.
Proceeds from sales of this eBook will be donated to charity.
Alternatively if you want to donate now, please click on the link below to donate directly to RNLI
Orcadian poet Robert Rendall's dialect poem below recalls sailing in bad weather. Salt i' the Bluid A'm bydan heem, 'at geed for lang Rugged afore the mast, Yet times me thowts they taak a spang Aft tae the wild Nor'wast. On winter nights I whiles can feel Me cottage gaan adrift, An' wance again I grip the wheel Tae the sea-swaal's aisy lift. Whan lood swaps gouster at the door, And the nort' wind tirls the sneck, Full canvas on, we drive afore, As whaalbacks sweep the deck. Spier no for siklike ferlies proof! Things chance when nights are lang: The very timmers o' the roof Creak as we dunt alang. Robert Rendall, 1898-1967 bydan: staying; 'at geed: went; ruggan: toiling; spand: leap; Nor'wast: Davis Straits and North West Canada; swaps: gusts; gouster: storm; tirls: rattles; whaalbacks: long smooth waves; sneck: latch; speir: ask; siklike: such; ferlies: marvels; dunt: bump
Find out more about Westray at www.orkney.com