THE LAST MCGRUER

Calum Sillars was just nine years old when the boat of his dreams was launched. He and his family lived at Shandon on the east side of Scotland’s Gareloch, where the boat-mad boy learned to sail first on Cadet dinghies and the Bristol Channel pilot cutter Hirta (then owned by his uncle) and later on Dragons and Gareloch One Designs (designed by James McGruer). The family’s home overlooked the water, and directly on the other side of the loch was the yard of McGruer & Co in the village of Clynder. It was a constant source of fascination to the young Calum.

“We lived about as close to McGruer’s as you could get on the east side of the loch,” he remembers. “Every morning, I’d throw my curtains open and there was the yard. I was wonderful to watch the launch of new boats down their slipway from the house. Whenever a new boat was launched, it was quite an event in the local community. Even at this time I admired McGruer yachts, particularly the lines of their yawls – of which at least one was invariably moored in the Gareloch.”

One of the yawls launched at the yard in 1968 was more significant than most: Build No 623, the 47ft (14.3m) , James McGruer’s final design. It’s quite possible that Calum watched the boat being launched, and he would certainly have seen her in subsequent years when she was based on the Clyde at around the same time that he had a summer job at the yard. Calum went and two years as Prince Philip’s equerry. But the memory of those perfectly-proportioned boats slicing through the halcyon waters of the Clyde would remain with him throughout his life and would influence his decision when it came to choosing a boat for his family half a century later.