IT WAS ‘Happy Birthday’ time at the Royal Gourock Yacht Club last weekend for the Piper Class One design yachts as they celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the launch of the first production line model produced by Robertson’s boatyard at Sandbank in 1966.
The class was originally conceived on the back of the 1964 Challenge by Sovereign, a 66-foot 12 meter class yacht which was designed and built by Robertson’s to the design of David Boyd, a pre-eminent local naval architect for the Americas cup competition in Rhode Island in America.
The Piper is in many ways a scaled down version of that beautiful yacht, and very soon a fleet of 58 yachts evolved, all launched at Sandbank. A small proportion of them went abroad where they are still sailed in the USA, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Africa, England and Ireland. However most of the boats have remained in Scotland on the Clyde and meet every year for their annual championship, this year being held at Gourock in August.
An extra emphasis was put on the significance of this occasion, with a three-day event of five races incorporating the Titan One Design Regatta on the Saturday.
An excellent dinner provided by the crew of Chatters of John Street Dunoon, was served in the palatial surroundings of the Royal Gourock Yacht Club on Friday evening to the crews of the seventeen competing boats. This social occasion was presided over by class captain Iain Hurrel, who in everyone’s agreement after his speech ‘should be on television’. The 60 guests all went home laughing.
The racing was equally stimulating despite some wet weather, as the breeze was good and the race officers, Bill Aitchison and Duncan Munro, were on the ball to produce constant close racing and a continuously spectacular view for the shoreside spectators.
The winners of the event were Roddy Angus, Dan Challis and Calum Calder from the Holy Loch Sailing Club, along with, the ever-present spirit of Bronwen Angus, Pied Piper’s owner who passed away in May following a brave battle with cancer. Her final request was that her beloved yacht would compete in the Anniversary Regatta and her husband fulfilled this wish to perfection by winning the event in dominating style, never being out of fourth place and with three first places. Bronwen will be delighted with the boys’ achievements.
At the close of the event, which was very generously sponsored by Titan Spirits, James Watt Dock Marina, Saturn and Musto Sails, Marlow Ropes, Tunnock’s Confectionary and local company Marine Blast, Alan Hebert, the furthest travelled Piper owner from San Francisco, presented burgees as gifts from his home club – the Island Yacht Club, to the Holy Loch and Royal Gourock Yacht Clubs which was reciprocated by Captain Duncan Telfer, the Commodore at Gourock and Iain Hurrel, captain of the Piper Association. Thanks were also expressed to event organiser Rowena Donaldson and the officials and staff of the host club, before the well satisfied competitors sailed off home to their respective clubs.
