Readers of the May issue may remember my grumbles at the thought of ‘heaving a heavy wooden boat through the waves’. Happily, I seem to have got over the grump; the inaugural St Ayles Skiff World Championships was held in nearby Ullapool last week, and our local boat the Coigach Lass was on quite the finest form.

The story of the St Ayles Skiff is short so far, but remarkable. In 2009 the Scottish Fisheries Museum instigated a wooden boat building project and commissioned a simple design which could be supplied in kit form to be built cheaply by amateurs, and based it on the 22ft skiffs raced by Fife coal mining communities until the 1950s.

They envisioned a handful of boats being built and raced by communities around the Forth, but the concept has taken off like … well, like the Coigach Lass from the start line. 25 clubs have formed around the Scottish coast, including teams from the Isles of Lewis, Islay, Seil. 56 skiffs have been launched across the world (from Pennsylvania to Tasmania) and another 50 are in construction.

A skiff is powered by four rowers each heaving a heavy wooden oar, and a petite Cox handling the rudder and yelling a lot. It’s physically tough, but these colourful boats are stable and safe for the whole community.

The Scottish clubs have held regattas for the last few years but this is the first time boats from foreign shores have come together. It may not be a World Championship on the scale of some other sports, but with teams from Europe, North America and the Antipodes, and an opening ceremony starring HRH Princess Anne, it felt pretty substantial.

The competition was certainly substantial and the pressure, having won every race at our own regatta, was high. From the Under 16s to

Wilders and Williams, by Anne McGee

the Over 60s (featuring my wonderful parents) and all the categories in between, Team Coigach donned our sky blue t-shirts and went into battle.

Rich and I – relatively fit and strong from years slithering around Tanera’s paths hauling gas bottles / baby / other people’s holiday luggage – were honoured to row for the Mixed Open, and the Men’s and Women’s Open teams…and we were delighted to win.

The smallness of our community could be a disadvantage as we have just 270 people from which to select our teams. But perhaps our strength is in our smallness: about a tenth of the population have been turning out for training since early Spring, and many more came to roar from the shore. Our victories were definitely a community-wide team effort, and Rowing has nurtured the sort of social cohesion of which many-a government or NGO programme can only dream.

And maybe the same tenacity (stubbornness?) that sees us clinging to life out here also has us doggedly determined to cross that finishing line before Anstruther or North Berwick.

I don’t know what makes our wee boat the best, but we were all pretty pleased to come home jangling with medals and holding aloft the stunning (made in Coigach!) winners’ trophy.

(Writer-broadcaster-campaigner Lesley Riddoch wrote an excellent piece about the World Championships,  with reference to community cohesion and land purchase – much worth a read: http://www.lesleyriddoch.com/2013/07/pulling-together-for-better-future.html; there’s also more about this budding new sport at www.scottishcoastalrowing.org) 

This article first appeared as a column in the magazine Scottish Islands Explorer.