Finding Glenshiel
The launch of GLENSHIEL in front of Hugh’s parent’s house, on Nutgrove beach, Sandy Bay, Tasmania.
Here at SWS we are not very good at commercialising our content, (hint…click donate!) but one thing we do have some success with is tracking down boats that our readers have lost touch with. We have around three thousand readers a week with an interest in wooden boats, so we can throw the net far and wide. So don’t let me down with this one!
We received a email last week from Paul Boutchard. He writes….
Hi There,
My father in law, Hugh Garnham (now in his late 80s) built a 26ft Huon pine yacht, called GLENSHIEL in the late 1950s, to do the Sydney-Hobart. He was in his early twenties when he built it at his parents’ house, which happened to be on the foreshore of the Derwent. It was the first yacht to represent the Derwent Sailing Squadron in the race and the first yacht to have a aluminium mast. It was a Illingworth and Primrose design. Unfortunately, it was dismasted off Eden.
He brought it back to Hobart, but changed circumstances meant he had to sell the yacht. I believe It went to Sydney and was entered by a C Dolling in 1963 S2H, but didn’t start the race. The yacht does appear in the 1963 programme, representing was CYCA.
Fortunately, Hugh went on to sail in multiple S2Hs, including aboard SOLO and STORMVOGEL, overall winner and line honours respectively. He also built a boat called GLENSHIEL VII in which he cruised around Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. At the age of 70 he stopped sailing and got a pilots licence and flew extensively around Australia, before resuming sailing in his 80s. When he retired last year his last boat was GLENSHIEL XII an Adam’s 40. Hugh is the sole surviving member of the 1959 crew.
I was hoping to see if anyone knows the current whereabouts the original GLENSHIEL, assuming that it has survived the intervening years. If readers are able to assist it would be greatly appreciated.
Kind Regards
Paul Boutchard
EMAIL YOUR INSIGHTS HERE
GLENSHIEL sailing in a race prior to the 1959 S2H
Peter Tillemans - The Battle of Glenshiel 1719
From www.historic-uk.com
Britain had been at war with Spain for a year when in March 1719 the Spanish dispatched an invasion fleet carrying some 6,000 men destined for the southwest coast of England.
Around the same time a smaller force of around 270 Spanish marines under the command of George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, set sail for the West Highlands of Scotland. Their mission was to join forces with the Scottish Jacobites and encourage a general rising through the western clans which could then march south to support the main invasion. At the very least, it would divert and occupy government forces.
Unfortunately for the Jacobites, the same fate befell the main Spanish invasion fleet as that of the more famous Armada that had set sail for English shores more than a hundred year earlier; it was decimated in a storm.
Left with no other alternative, the combined Scottish-Spanish force, now totalling just 1,000 men, decided to continue with their quest. However things went from bad to worse when three Royal Navy warships arrived in Loch Alsh and spent the next two days bombarding Eilean Donan Castle, where most of the Jacobite ammunition was stored.
On hearing that a government force of a similar size led by Major General Wightman had left Inverness to confront them, the Jacobites established a defensive position on a natural bottleneck through the pass at Glen Shiel. Although the government force was similar in terms of numerical size, they had the added advantage of possessing four mortar batteries.
The battle began late in the afternoon of 10th June 1719, when the government forces advanced on the Jacobite defences.
In an attempt to soften-up the enemy, Wightman first used his mortars to bombard the Jacobite position. He then ordered his infantry to attack the Jacobite flanks, whilst continuing to shell the enemy centre, keeping the Spanish troops pinned down in their defences on the northern slopes of the glen.
After three hours of stubborn resistance, the Jacobites were eventually driven from their defensive position and forced into retreat. The Spanish marines, finding that most of their allies had deserted them, were forced in to an orderly fighting retreat and later surrendered.