The restored Boat Club Tower

©George Selvester

Born in Edinburgh in 1943, marine engineer George Selvester moved to Cromarty in 1993. He was the driving force behind the formation of The Cromarty Boat Club and served as its Commodore from 1996 to 2004. This is the Boat Club's history in George's words.

The Cromarty Firth is an excellent harbour, like old Dan Defoe and the Urquhart mannie said. Of all the places on the east coast of Britain, I would say this is the ideal place to have a yacht club. The Moray Sail Training come over from Lossiemouth and spend a lot of time in this firth, bringing people up to yachtmaster and so forth. The waters are generally calm unless you have a ‘fetch’ from Invergordon. If you have a strong westerly or northwesterly it can be uncomfortable but it is not downright dangerous. You can have short sharp waves which are not too difficult, although they do make a lot of people seasick, by the way.

The old Cromarty yacht club fell away in 1963. When I came here it was totally defunct. I joined the Chanonry Club at Fortrose but they were more interested in promoting dinghy sailing, so after a year I joined the Invergordon Boat Club, a great bunch of guys who have a very enthusiastic racing programme for the bigger boats, 26ft and above, out-and-out racing machines. The answer, it seemed to me, was to start another boat club at this end of the firth to cater for more affordable sailing, looking after owners of craft such as my own. In late 1995 I sent a letter to the local newspapers asking for anyone with an interest in forming a club at Cromarty to attend a public meeting. The response was overwhelming – over fifty people attended the meeting and a steering committee was formed.

In April of 1996 Cromarty Boat Club was formally constituted and a full committee elected. The Flag Officers of the first committee were myself as Commodore, Bill Fraser (Dolphin Ecosse) as Vice Commodore, Alex Davidson as Secretary and Ronald Young (Cromarty Ferry Skipper) as Treasurer.

Alex then started to act as crew on my boat Fat Sam and soon we would have the first organised races and re-introduced the popular Cromarty Regatta. The problem we had, though, was no proper premises, either for over-wintering the boats, or a clubhouse. The hard by the pier and the ruinous observation tower were obviously suitable locations.

Cromarty 2000, a company set up for the refurbishment of the whole harbour area, expressed delight at the forming of a boat club, which they believed would strengthen their case. It was extremely unfortunate that their project failed at the last funding hurdle, but we still had an opportunity.

We obtained a tentative verbal agreement for a lease on the tower with the Laird Michael Nightingale, and were on the point of sending off the first cheques when he sadly passed away and the whole idea was shelved. But Alex and I continued to discuss all the possibilities. The committee approached Michael’s son, John, to try to negotiate leasing the land around the harbour (which until now had been nothing but an eyesore) as well as the tower. Right from the very start John Nightingale was extremely helpful and in a relatively short time we had lease agreements on both the boat park project and the tower. The leases both came into effect on January 1st 2001, the boat park for a period of ten years and the tower for twenty-five years.

We realised that we could only tackle one problem at a time so went for the easier of the two to start with, and that was the boat park. After negotiating successfully with the Community Council over the plans, we soon got planning permission.

The problem now was where to get the money! Alex made the raising of the necessary funding look like a cakewalk. The total amount required for the project was £8,000 and our principal funders were Ross and Cromarty Enterprise (RACE) who gave around £5,000 and the Moray Firth Partnership £1,000.  Alex also dealt superbly with all the administration, even down to organising the contractors. I directed the building contractors to the levelling of the compound and the fencing contractors as to the position and dimensions of posts, gates etc. The boat park was open, ready for use, by the end of the 2001 season.

We felt that the tower would be a more difficult nut to crack. The basement is a First World War-built structure, certainly bombproof at the time. Its walls are 3ft thick and may have provided a generator room for the company that was on the Links. During the Second World War the top part of two storeys was added, one of several round the firths from which the practices for the D-Day landings were monitored.

In the 1990s it was derelict, a broken-glassed, dark-stained, paint-peeling eyesore, just like everything else round there, detracting enormously from the appeal of the old harbour and that end of the Links.

We initially invited professionals to advise us, but found ourselves being proposed a grandiose monument rather than a useful building. After a lot of discussion the committee agreed that we act as our own agents in the project. We felt we had bitten off more than we could chew at times, but fortunately the opening of the boat park had started to swell our membership and all sorts of previously unsuspected talents emerged. Charlie Bateman and others revealed their knowledge of building and planning, drawing and general construction. Bill Fraser, a retired architect living in Cromarty, was a huge help in designing. Gavin Meldrum drew up lists of necessary tasks and allotted these tasks to the person most able to do them. Alex had to stay away from contractors, and me from funders, in case I upset them. Imagine!

By the end of the 2002 season we were in a very favourable position on all fronts except funding. Contracts were sent out to tender and wherever possible we asked local tradesmen to quote for all the work. Then in 2003 we were knocked back on all our funding applications, every one. One of the problems was a failure to show financial benefit to the wider community. Undaunted, Alex then did research, wrote a business plan and a brilliant presentation showing that the facilities for members and especially, visiting boat-owners, our toilet, showers and washer/dryer etc, were going to bring at least £16,000 a year into Cromarty.

At last, after several more frustrating failures Alex came through with the news that it was all systems go!  The whole project was costed at £33,477.16. The principal funders for this project were the Community European Development programme (CED) £16,000. For this amount we had to have match funding. This came from Ross & Cromarty Enterprise (RACE) £15,000 and Highland Council £1,000. The remaining £1,477.16 was from club funds.

Work started during March 2003 and to start with seemed to take forever to get off the ground as we continually hit little niggling problems that set us back by several days. We had already decided upon an opening day: 5th May. I proved adept again at getting upset and then upsetting others. Gavin Meldrum made me step back and chill out for a couple of days. We opened on deadline.

It was very gratifying that 90% of the membership did a little bit of work or donated items for the running of the new clubhouse. In many cases we had members who donated items and worked on the decorating and landscaping.

I think that the project brought us all together so that we gelled into a club at last. I have to thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart! Especially Alex Davidson, who has now returned to his home country, Canada.

Since then, the Aberdeen University marine biology team have taken over the old British Legion hut and grounds, and they too have been superbly smartened up. The harbour area is now a well-ordered, visually appealing and serene attraction to visitors in its own right.

We have a full write-up in the Reeds Almanac annually which will ensure our name goes everywhere there are keen sailors. We have a very functional clubhouse with tremendous facilities for the visiting yachtsmen who have now started to arrive from all over Britain and Europe. When the club was founded we had eight boats in an unkempt hard. The park now has 21 spaces, 30ft x 10ft wide. It is full, and we are about to expand to accommodate up to 30 boats. 2007 will see our eleventh season, and we will be among the proud hosts for the visit of the traditional boat flotilla which will berth here as part of the Year of Highland Culture.