from the diary of John Alexander Hutcheson Fraser (1876-1939)

My grandfather was a keen sportsman all his life, very fond of Yachting, Shooting and Bowling. Soon after his marriage, he bought the "La Belle Anglaise", a twenty ton cutter. He afterwards had built for him the "Hebrides" a forty ton schooner, which he sailed for many years and which he afterwards sold to the Swedish cousins. They, after sailing the "Hebrides" for many years, sold her and when last heard of in the 90s she was sailing about Iceland, showing how strongly she had been built.

About 1874, he had a larger and faster schooner built called the "Viking". She was a smart steel framed 60 tonner, which he occasionally raced. In September 1876, she won the Royal Highland Cup and I remember her skipper, Captain Carmichael, telling me many years afterwards of a very famous race he had in her, when owing to the light uncertain winds they did not reach Oban until after the starting gun had been fired, but they sailed the race and led the fleet home but were disqualified for not being present at the start.

Uncle Johnstone used to tell another "Viking" story. It was then customary to fire the two muzzle loading brass cannon, the carriages of which were lashed to the deck beside the foremast rigging of the "Viking" when the steamer was abreast of Airds Bay. On one of these occasions, Uncle Johnstone persuaded Sandy Matheson (the bosun) who attended to the matter, to allow him to fire them. This was usually done by Sandy getting the cook to heat a poker and pass it up to Sandy, who, standing between the two cannon would touch them off with the red hot poker. Uncle Johnstone, who had been reading Marryat, stood to the one side as described in "Midshipman Easy" and thus escaped when one of the cannon exploded and blew itself to pieces and took the poker right out of Uncle Johnstone's hand. The following week, when getting the "Viking" under way, the poker fell from aloft twisted up like a corkscrew. I was told by Sandy Matheson, that before placing the new cannon on board the "Viking", my grandfather made Sandy try them out on shore nearby, loading them to the muzzle and firing them with a long fuse. Sandy said they jumped six feet into the air when they were fired. I can remember them on the "Viking" and afterwards when the "Viking" was sold, they were stored in the loft above the coachman's house at the Airds stables. I saw them last in 1897.

Instead of laying up the "Hebrides" and "Viking" at some boatbuilding yard, my grandfather had a dock cut out of the solid rock on the east side of Airds Bay, into which, at high tide the yacht was floated, but so high was the wind and tide on the night of the famous Taybridge storm, December 1879, that the moorings were broken and the "Viking" was floated out of dock and landed up on the rocks near the road. She was so well and strongly built that very little damage was done and she was launched again after some of the rocks were blasted away. After the "Mona" was purchased in 1883, the "Viking" was chartered one summer to the Grahams and other friends, but about 1885, she was sold and I did not see her again until early in 1894, when I purchased a small yacht then laid up in Paul Jones's yard, Fort Matilda and found the "Viking" was laid up in the same yard. Fred Bowman and I spent one or two very happy and comfortable nights on her when we were getting our small yacht "The Flirt" ready for sea.

The only members of the "Viking" crew I can remember were Captain Carmichael and Sandy Matheson. Captain Carmichael afterwards kept the Airds Hotel and Sandy was bosun on the "Mona" and worked in the garden when the "Mona" was laid up in the winter.

In 1882, my grandfather chartered the "Mona", a 280 ton schooner rigged steam yacht from Mr Clark and with a party, spent the winter in the Mediterranean. He bought the "Mona" the following year and retained her until his death in 1899. She was a grand sea boat and very comfortably fitted up and carried a crew of fourteen with old Sandy Matheson as Bosun, John Duncan as Cook, Allan Duncan as Steward, Mr Murray as Engineer and Leonard as Coxswain. Captain Thomson remained on her until Mr Clark had the "Mohican" built, then followed Captain Guile who published "A Pilgrim's Progress" written in nautical terms. Then followed Captain Leslie who was the Captain when my grandfather died, and who I last saw in 1902 in Oban when he was in charge of a big English Yawl. Obituary.