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Britain’s North-West Sentries

William Ehrman

Awarded the Founder’s Cup

Scattered beyond the Outer Hebrides to the north-west of Britain lie islands which Admiralty charts refer to as the ‘Atlantic Outliers’. Rockall truly fits this description, lying 200nm out in the ocean. Five other dots of territory are situated less far from shore and could perhaps better be described as Britain’s North-West Sentries. These are Sule Skerry, 37nm west of the Orkneys, North Rona and Sula Sgeir 44 and 43nm north of the Butt of Lewis, the Flannan Islands 20nm west of Lewis and St Kilda 40nm west of North Uist. Many commercial maps do not feature the first three or four of these. Interestingly the clearest one I have found which does is Russian. That may justify my name for them.

St Kilda has some defence contractors living on it. The other islands are today uninhabited. I have long had an ambition to visit them. In 2003 our son, Tom (now RCC), and I sailed a 17ft open boat to St Kilda (Roving Commissions 44). ‘North Rona next,’ said Tom on our return.

Fifteen years have since passed. Open boat to North Rona was never, even then, a real possibility. That island is much further from good jumping off points than St Kilda is. The weather there is also often severe. In January wind speeds average F8. In the first week of July the average drops to its lowest level, F5.

A possibility of getting there safely at such a time seemed to open up when in 2009 I saw that Mary Helen, Helen Tew’s 1937 gaff cutter and a boat I have long admired, was for sale. I was then working in China and bought her unseen. After retiring the following year, my wife Penny and I sailed her up from Lymington to Loch Etive in Argyll where we live for part of the year. Since then we have sailed her around the Hebrides each summer. In 2014 extensive work was done to the boat with new oak strappings, a new transom and new keel bolts fitted. Mary Helen has no modern gadgets for raising the mainsail, furling the jib, reefing or anchoring, so Penny said I should find a stronger crew if I wanted to go beyond the Hebrides. At a dinner in the New Forest with John de Trafford (RCC) in late 2017, he, Charles Cooke-Hurle, John Langdon (RCC) and Liz Langdon very kindly agreed to come with me, John de Trafford and Charles for the offshore bits and John Langdon and Liz to sail Mary Helen home.

Penny and I took her up to Stornoway in June and on the evening of 10 July John de Trafford, Charles and I set out for North Rona 68nm away. They

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had a week for sailing before flying home, so we decided there wasn’t time for Sule Skerry. The passage to North Rona was into a N4, so bang on the nose all the way and the sea once we got beyond the Butt of Lewis was uncomfortable. For the only time in my life I was seasick after a wet, cold night and too large a breakfast. But that afternoon we came into the protected east side of the island, its cliff and light towering 350ft above us. We anchored in 7m at Geodh’ a’ Stoth where my cousin Mike McMullen (RCC) had reported a patch of sand among the underwater boulders in 1975 (Roving Commissions 16). Sure enough it was there. We rowed ashore and got up some slippery rocks. On the grass above was a pile of driftwood. I took a plank to fend off bonxies, the vicious Great Skuas we had seen over the island and which are the only birds I know to attack humans. They aim for the top of the head. The plank was needed as lots of them were breeding on the slopes above. We walked all over the island, but failed to locate St Ronan’s underground 7th century chapel. So in a sense we ‘went there, but didn’t get the T shirt’.

The night was quiet and we set off for Sula Sgeir, 11nm west, the following morning. St Ronan’s sister Brenhilda stayed and died there, her body subsequently being discovered with a gannet nesting in her rib cage. As we approached the rock it appeared covered with a mass of white flowers. Closer

Mary HelenJ E H Tew 26’ Gaff Cutter

Flannan Is

Sula Sgeir North Rona

Stornaway

Skye

Mull L Etive

Lewis

Canna Rum

L Roag

West L Tarbert

Muck

Gairloch

L Shell

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still and we could see these were gannets, tens of thousands of them nesting on the ledges. It was a marvellous sight. The sky around us was white with them and the sea peppered with little spouts as they dived for their catches. We turned south making for Loch Roag on the west coast of Lewis and the wind in tandem turned southerly against us. A fishing boat came deliberately and dangerously close to us in the night, but 55nm later the following morning, with the wind rising, we anchored in Loch Carloway, a secure shelter within East Loch Roag.

For the next three days the wind went up to F8, with heavy rain and intermittent fog. We took to the land and visited the Standing Stones of

Callanish, Carloway broch, several wonderful white beaches and some restored black houses. In a hired car we drove to the fine church of Rodel at the tip of Harris and took a detour to Scadabay, a tiny sea loch in East Harris with an even tinier entrance into which Swampwallah, a boat I once part-owned, was sailed by Christopher Corbet (RCC) without motor in 1975, Penny fending off the rocks with a boathook.

On 17 July the wind dropped and we set off close-hauled for the Flannan

Islands where St Ronan’s brother St Flannan had lived. I wonder how the family would be classified by psychologists today. ‘Holy’ seems the right word to me if not very modern. We got to the main island at low tide, anchored in 6m close to and tried to land. But there was a big leap upwards to reach a ledge and although the swell almost got us there once or twice, we slid off like seals each time. So we settled for a row around and for watching the numerous types of seabird nesting at different levels on the cliff. I counted fourteen: puffin, guillemot, razorbill, oystercatcher, fulmar, kittiwake, storm petrel, shag,

John and Charles on North Rona

Mary Helen at North Rona

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eider, rock pipit, greater blackback gull, herring gull, starling and a few visiting gannets. This was the same tally as in 1959 when a detailed survey was made. It is good there has been no reduction since then. Atlantic seals wailed as we sat down to dinner, but otherwise the islands gave us a calm night. Animal sightings were augmented the next day

when, on a lovely reach to West Loch Tarbert, we spotted a minke whale and a group of dolphins. As we entered the loch we also spotted, far off by the Sound of Harris, the first two yachts we had seen since leaving Stornoway eight days earlier. The Hebrides are still unspoilt.

The next week, with John and Liz Langdon, we had a fun passage through the Sound of Harris and on to Canna on two headsails, a day of tacking in rain and fog to Muck and then two fair days home to Loch Etive. On Canna we were once more attacked by bonxies when walking to the grave of a King of Norway. One brushed my head. Mary Helen’s single gas ring played up a bit, but not enough to spoil our gourmet meals of beef casserole, salmon kedgeree and hot dogs on scrambled eggs, with whisky, cake and chocolate for cold spells.

Sule Skerry next?

Mary Helen off the Flannans

Approaching Sula Sgeir