Drink Sailing...

[Mark]

I didn't know this:

http://ybw.com/auto/newsdesk/20090111132533mbmnews.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2003/uk ... 30020_en_6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As far as I can tell, as of 2007 if you're steering or helping to steer a vessel over 7m or capable of over 7 knots, you have to be as sober as if you were driving a car. They're considering extending to all craft.

Should help to flog a few tiller pilots!

[Pete Cooper]

I vaguely remember somebody being done for drunk boating in Troon nearly 20 years ago under existing legislation.

[Nick]

They're considering extending to all craft.

I'm considering ignoring it

[sahona]

Uniformed polis...? Maybe we're lucky in this area, but if you stay away from Glasgow city centre, and the submarine depots up the lochs, it's unlikely you get pulled over.
I can't see the local from Caladh jumping out of his van and swimming after us on the 24th april.

[Shuggy]

Uniformed polis...?

Maybe a job for unemployed bankers?

"No officer, I'm not really drunk. I have invested in so called 'toxic alcohol' derivatives and therefore they don't really exist on my personal balance sheet."

Actually, I think I burn toxic alcohol derivatives in my Origo stove. If they don't exist, maybe that's why it takes so long for the kettle to boil.

[elsa]

And on the subject of drinking aboard .....

...... did you see the article in YM this month on the 40 best sailors pubs in the UK?


Only 4 in Scotland, but Tigh na Truish was one of them, plus the Byron Barnton on Sanda & The OysterCatcher on Loch Fyne ... All great choices.

[little boy blue]

what was the fourth one ?
unfair not to give it a mention

[aquaplane]

We tend to leave off drinking untill tied up for the night anyway, so I would like to think I'm complying. Having said that, some days it may be best to wait untill tea time before doing a breath test.

I still think the RYA "education rather than legislation" philosophy is best, and for sailing it's mainly yourself that you are putting at risk anyway.

[elsa]

Hmm yes. Good point!. I didn't remember which one it was it was cos I've never been there, but it probably does look a bit like a slight against the establishment. Not, so. I'm just poorly travelled.

. .... I'll go and find the magazine ......

OK. It's. *drum roll*

The Old Forge, Inverie, Knoydart.

which I have heard is excellent, and will now definitely have to visit! (Sorry Old Forge)

[Mark]

...... did you see the article in YM this month on the 40 best sailors pubs in the UK?

I can't imagine why anyone would be interested but these are the 13 I've visited:

The Steam Packet Inn
Totnes, River Dart, Devon

The Anchor Bleu - SUperb Sea Bass
Bosham, Chichester Harbour

The King of Prussia
Fowey, Cornwall

The Mishnish Hotel
Tobermory, Isle of Mull

The Master Builders Hotel
Beaulieu River, Hampshire

The Old Forge - Land lady let us shower in her house 'cos the pub shower was U/S!
Inverie, Knoydart, By Mallaig, Scotland

The Jolly Sailor
Old Bursledon, River Hamble

The Dolphin Inn
Newton Ferrers, River Yealm

The Folly Inn
River Medina, Isle of Wight

Tigh an Truish
Seil Island, Argyll, Scotland

The Pier View
Cowes, Isle of Wight

The George
Yarmouth, Isle of Wight

The King’s Head
Lymington, Hampshire

[elsa]

And what did you think of them? Deserving of their top 40 place?

[Nick]

.
Tigh an Truish is our local, as most of you know. It is the very best pub in the entire universe, and we are just this minute back from yet another wonderful evening, a friend's 50th with a superb band. In some ways we prefer it in the Winter when us locals have it to ourselves, but it is wonderful when the season starts and all manner of sailors start coming over the hill. I have even been recognised from my avatar and been bought a drink on the strength of it.

I knew the T&T of old from nights at anchor over the hill of course. Almost a year to the day before we moved to Seil I was delivering a boat up to Oban and we spent the last night of the trip in Puillabdobhrain. I sat in the wooden 'stalls' at the end of the bar and remarked plaintively that I wished it was my local. Almost exactly a year later I was sitting in the same seat and realised that it was.

Probably the only really good move I ever made . . . . apart from getting hitched to SWMBO of course. And maybe spending a year away in warmer waters on Fairwinds . . . oh OK, it hasn't been such a bad life, but the pub is the icing on the cake

Happy Valentines day everyone.

[elsa]

We had (have?) a bit of a plan to make Tigh na Truish our local too. We've loved it everytime we've been. Decent homemade veggie grub, which aint that common it seems, great beer, lovely atmosphere. We were thinking about looking at a cottage the other side of the atlantic bridge - still on Seil Island, but along the shore from the pub past the bridge. Sadly the plan depended on the sale of our house and the less said about the sale of houses at the moment, the better! (especially on a sailing forum)

Are they getting any closer to finishing whatever it is they're doing to the island yet? (Digging it up and moving it a foot to the west?)

[Nick]

Are they getting any closer to finishing whatever it is they're doing to the island yet? (Digging it up and moving it a foot to the west?)

Ah, the sewage - don't ask . . .

[Mark]

And what did you think of them? Deserving of their top 40 place?

Not especially. Certainly there were no 'bad' pubs in the the 13 that I'd visited but some are/were just like 'chain pubs'. Mind you, apart from some of the South Coast Pubs Pubs all have *something* special about them from a Boatie's POV.

Maybe they should have called it "40 random quite good pubs" rather then 'best'. As it is they seem to be saying The Kings Head is better than Badacro? What about Dell Quay? Nelson in Littlehampton. Don't recall the name but there was a pub in Portree was better than any of the South Coast Pubs I've visited by a country mile.

Mind you it was perhaps just a bit of fun and wasn't intended to be analysed - and it got us talking!

In some ways we prefer it in the Winter when us locals have it to ourselves

I must confess I didn't remember Tigh an Truish as being very friendly. We were there very early in the season and Early in the Evening so there weren't many people around. The bar-woman and the two-three elderly tweed clad locals huddled about certainly didn't make me feel welcome - I likened it to the sort of "locals pubs" where it goes silent when you walk in. Mind you, I didn't make any effort to chat myself so perhaps at the T&T they talk about the miserable English **** who walked in and out one April without chatting.

80 shilling was fine.

Having said all that it was a must-see pub. Pulldohran is stunning, and the Bridge is pretty cool. Plus it's famous as a yottie haunt which gives it a bit of cred. I'll be going back. Living there is just a dream, but who knows, maybe one day.