Perth & The River Tay
June 12, 2021
12 Jun '21. HM 124. Did you know Perth has a sea going harbour 30 miles inland?
On the southern side of this beautiful city is a commercial harbour whose master is Fraser Wallace. Fraser is employed by Calmac, the operators of scottish ferries, and Perth Harbour (photo 3) sells itself as an environmentally friendly way of transporting bulk goods such as animal feed and fertiliser in coasters as large as 2,500 tonnes.
Fraser did admit his harbour was unique due to the complexity of the transit from the sea, but his own job which involves checking the critical navigation buoys on the river also has huge rewards. He can see beavers, otters, deer, seals and breeding osprey - all in one working day!
Our own passage to Perth was not without its excitements. After taking advice from several people, including the legendary "Davey Anderson Marine" (photo 4), we sailed up the river, stopping over at a magical anchorage at Newburgh (photo 5). On a second flood, we literally felt our way up the sandy banks with our keel (!) until we passed under the M90 bridge (photo 6) past the harbour entrance and cheekily poked our bow around the corner of the shallow river to spy the spire of St Matthew's Church in the city centre (photo 7).
To most people the Tay is a famous salmon river (the largest ever rod caught salmon in Britain was caught on the Tay by Georgina Ballantine in 1922, weighing 64 lbs). In the lower Tay, the netting of salmon was practiced for 500 years until finally banned in 1996. On our passage we passed several old salmon "stations" (huts) but our most memorable site was of an Osprey, perched on top of a starboard hand marker (photo 8).
Back in the estuary we sailed under the place where the train bridge disaster of 1879 took the lives of 75 people as the bridge collapsed and the train plunged into the river. Luckily our passage was smoother and we headed back to the safety of Tayport marina after a magical journey that I can highly recommend to all sailors.
On the southern side of this beautiful city is a commercial harbour whose master is Fraser Wallace. Fraser is employed by Calmac, the operators of scottish ferries, and Perth Harbour (photo 3) sells itself as an environmentally friendly way of transporting bulk goods such as animal feed and fertiliser in coasters as large as 2,500 tonnes.
Fraser did admit his harbour was unique due to the complexity of the transit from the sea, but his own job which involves checking the critical navigation buoys on the river also has huge rewards. He can see beavers, otters, deer, seals and breeding osprey - all in one working day!
Our own passage to Perth was not without its excitements. After taking advice from several people, including the legendary "Davey Anderson Marine" (photo 4), we sailed up the river, stopping over at a magical anchorage at Newburgh (photo 5). On a second flood, we literally felt our way up the sandy banks with our keel (!) until we passed under the M90 bridge (photo 6) past the harbour entrance and cheekily poked our bow around the corner of the shallow river to spy the spire of St Matthew's Church in the city centre (photo 7).
To most people the Tay is a famous salmon river (the largest ever rod caught salmon in Britain was caught on the Tay by Georgina Ballantine in 1922, weighing 64 lbs). In the lower Tay, the netting of salmon was practiced for 500 years until finally banned in 1996. On our passage we passed several old salmon "stations" (huts) but our most memorable site was of an Osprey, perched on top of a starboard hand marker (photo 8).
Back in the estuary we sailed under the place where the train bridge disaster of 1879 took the lives of 75 people as the bridge collapsed and the train plunged into the river. Luckily our passage was smoother and we headed back to the safety of Tayport marina after a magical journey that I can highly recommend to all sailors.