After all she’s been through and after our continuous pursuit of her whereabouts and fortunes for almost two years, we could not dream of letting Yeoman Bontrup slip quietly back into service at Glensanda this morning without a welcome, after sailing from Gdansk where she was virtually rebuilt at the Remontowa yard.
Aided and abetted by Struan Smith of Oban’s Coastal Connections, the plan was for an attempted intercept – with cameras – off Rudha an Ridire on Morvern, as Yeoman Bontrup rounded the point at the eastern end of the Sound of Mull to run north to her berth at the Glensanda superquarry.
We had to revise the off time backwards from 06.45 to 06.00 – which Struan philosophically accepted – because we hadn’t factored in to our ETA calculations the fact that she would come through the Pentland Firth like a bar of soap in a wet hand.
Then her speed through the Minches was higher than we’d allowed. It was a nervous business. Would it all be for nothing? Her ETA at Glensanda was 08.00. She was clearly going to be ahead of time – but how much ahead?
A couple of hours sleep and the first lurch into life at 04.00 was for the Marine Traffic AIS we’d left onscreen and which we’d used to track her passage from Gdansk.
The first wonder was that she showed up exactly where we’d hoped she’d be at that time – off Ardnamurchan Point, the UK’s most westerly mainland promontory.
A last glance at 04.20 before hitting the road for Oban showed her inside Ardnamurchan but but not yet engaged in the Sound of Mull – and her speed was down to just over 11 knots where we’d calculated on an average of 12.7. Looking good.
The intercept might just work – but from leaving the house, we were flying blind.
Jumping aboard as Struan brought the boat in promptly before 06.00 to the slip on the esplanade, we were immediately on our way out of Oban Bay.
The first unknown was coming up in our favour. Would there be light enough at this time? It was still quite dark but noticeably lightening as we went.
Through the narrows between the silhouetted hilltop ruins of Dunollie Castle and the north end of the Isle of Kerrera that shelters Oban, we were out into the Firth of Lorne and chomping our way through the white tops, westwards for the possible intercept. But was she already through?
Then Struan spotted navigation lights in the distance – on target.
We sped round the Stevenson light at the south end of Lismore (above), looking wonderfully well kept and serenely beautiful in the dawn light.
And as we cleared the island – there she was. Exactly as ‘planned’.
It was a strange moment. This was an appointment kept perfectly by both parties but known only to one of them, an appointment where the movements of the unknowing one could only be guessed. And she still didn’t know we were there – or that we’d come to meet her.
She was looking good. Her accommodation tower is now cream, the funnel a blue-grey, the hull her fleet’s signature lead red. The conveyor assembly is still attached to the accommodation tower but this time is hydraulically stayed from it rather than – from our memory - built against it.
The significance of this is that on 2nd July 2010, when she suffered a disastrous fire at her berth at Glensanda, a spark from welding was said to have caused what Clyde Coastguard described as a ‘fierce’ fire, with her burning conveyor assembly firing the accommodation tower. As luck had it, there were no serious injuries or fatalities – but there might have been. Lessons have clearly been learned.
She creamed on massively and purposefully (below) through the water as we skirted her and simply sailed on as we marvelled at her insouciance and silently wished her well.
This is the end of a remarkable story and it is an end we were determined to be able, somehow, to see and to write.
Yeoman Bontrup is back home in Glensanda, after her fire; after her urgent towing out of Glensanda in fears she might settle on the bottom in a neap tide and put the quarry out of business with no available berth for a long time; after her towing – via the north of the Shetlands – south to Ijmuiden in the Netherlands where, normally self discharging, she was carefully unloaded; after an Aberdeen tug arriving there to tow her again, north and east into Gdansk; after the careful hands at the Remontowa yard engineered her repair and rebirth; after her sea trials proved her ready for the passage back to Glensanda to enter service again; and after that passage, this time safe to travel through the Pentland Firth.
Silent welcome over – except for clicking cameras – Struan gunned the boat back for Oban.
The dawn skies were tranquilly beautiful, Struan agreed to a photograph (below) at the slip because he and the wonderfully flexible Coastal Connections service were very much part of this last chapter of a story in which some of our readers have energetically taken part.
Andrew MacGregor, Murdoch Mackenzie, lol2b , Roland van Velzen and Hugh McFarlane (who has also written for us on this) – we also made this morning’s trip for you.
We felt that, like us, you would appreciate a proper end to the saga and you were included in the quiet welcome and good wishes we offered Yeoman Bontrup.
She had already had one greeting before her passage around Scotland, On her way from Gdansk, as she cleared the main cluster of oil rigs in the North Sea yesterday morning and headed north west for the entrance to the Pentland First, her sister ship, Yeoman Bridge , came through the Firth, turning south east for Hamburg.
Back in July 2012, who would have thought we’d be seeing a single AIS screen with Yeoman Bontrup visibly a working part of the Glensanda fleet.
As we left Oban, Struan was getting the Coastal Connections boat ready for another working trip at 09.00, while out in the bay, over towards the Oban Cathedral, warming in the early sunrise, the second Coastal Connections boat waited to go to work as well – with Struan’s brother, Cameron – on a round Mull run.