“Malin, Rockall, Hebrides. Northwesterly seven, veering northerly by late afternoon, precipitation in sight”

That was the poetry of a maritime forecast when I was a lad.

Nowadays, a click of a button will get you as many different models of forecast as you want. All of them wrong.

A few years ago, well, decades actually, when Anne and I were first “walking out”, after work, I’d drive from Glasgow down to Largs for a Friday evening of teaching the young club cadets what little I’d learned about sailing and a weekend racing our Marauder dinghy and winching. The latter in the non Lewmar or Harken context.

In the early days of our relationship I was still in my probationary period with the head of the Rich family, George. Bunking up on the family sofa was a favour I could only ask for on a limited number of occasions.

Normally, I’d say my goodnights, hop in the car and drive round to the sailing club. Parked up, I’d go down to Cairnie’s Quay, pick up my father’s dinghy and row out through the moorings in the pitch black. No life jacket, no radio, nobody really knowing where I was. I’d then spend the night aboard one of dad’s many “tidy little cruisers” known to my mother as “Hell Ships.”

The tidy little Hell Ship that came to mind these last two nights, here in the Bahamas, was a Galleon. All twenty two feet of it. And this was a family cruiser in that era. Not much room for microwaves, air fryers, fridges, freezers, ice makers, washing machines and all the other paraphernalia which most cruisers wouldn’t even consider leaving shore without these days.

The Galleon was moored in the north half of Largs Bay on the Clyde. The Largs moorings, laid by George and David Howie** and the moorings committee were relatively sheltered unless the wind was from the north west or the south west. In either direction, the bay became exposed to a five to eight mile fetch, the seas having plenty time to build before hitting the mooring field.

Jeez. The nights of hell I spent on board that little boat. Character building or at least, building a lifelong immunity to seasickness. Sleeping in a bunk was never an option, the pitching and rolling just too wild to contemplate. To make the most of it I’d put the bunk cushions on the cabin sole in the vain hope that being on the centres of gravity and balance, I’d actually hardly move at all. Fat chance! I’d lie there, braced against the sides and I swear you could hear the waves building as they left the Kyles. The noise would increase in volume as the waves passed Tomont and, just as they were about to hit, the little Galleon, weighing all of a couple of tons at most, probably less, would pitch violently upwards and crash into the foaming crest before diving headlong into the trough. I’d spend the night listening to the oncoming waves, the roar getting increasingly more threatening as it approached, then, BANG, I’d brace myself against all the movement and wait for the next one. Finally, exhausted, I’d fall into a semblance of sleep.

And so, there I was, all these decades on and, despite being in a somewhat larger boat, listening to the howl of the wind in the rigging, the sound of the waves approaching and the lift and crash of them hitting the hulls.

It was Force 7 through the anchorage these last two nights and I could easily have been back in Largs on a cold, windy, summer’s night.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a wee house?

** Talking of breaking cardinal diving rules, I was beavering away at my “Forthcoming Book” the other day, writing a piece about how Anne and I pursued our PADI diving certificates in Largs and Lisbon. In it I wrote about Anne breaking a cardinal rule of diving by shooting to the surface after seeing a monster crab.

David Howie’s fingerprints are all over the length of Largs moorings. He would set them up, diving on his own for hours, no dive buddy, using, what by today’s standards was pretty rudimentary gear. George would be hanging over the back of a wobbly dinghy in support, more moral than practical, watching for bubbles, although what he could have done to help in any serious situation was probably pretty limited. No cell phone, no VHF……. but probably a flask of tea.