Findochty Water Sports Club (FWSC) was founded in 1983 when a few enthusiasts with boats kept in Findochty Harbour decided to form a club catering for sailing and fishing.
Findochty is a picturesque village situated 2 miles east of the busy port of Buckie on the Moray coast. Findochty harbour dries at low Spring tides but still has an active fleet of creel boats that now fish all the year round. Locally Findochty is pronounced “Finechty”.
A few years later Grampian Regional Council, who were responsible for the upkeep of the harbour, installed two pontoons which led to many more boats being able to berth in the harbour. This increased activity and FWSC were able to organise yacht racing and fishing competitions. Findochty yachtsmen began to compete in outside events like the Moray Firth Sevens Series and the Lybster Pot. Other competitions were popular like the Seamanship Trophy competed for annually.
A prizegiving and dinner dance was held annually held at venues including Cullen Bay Hotel. Marine Hotel and Mill of Tynet Hotel. FWSC was managed by a committee elected at an Annual General Meeting. Each Autumn many boats were lifted from the water and placed on the quayside by a crane hired by FWSC. Maintenance took place over the Winter and the boats craned back in usually in April.
Initially FWSC rented the small building by the harbour known as The Howff and later entered into a lease arrangement with the Moray Council. A former member bequeathed a storage shed at the harbour to FWSC for which ground rent is paid to the Council.
From the start sailing and motorboat cruises were popular with weekend trips to harbours and anchorages around the Moray Firth. Many sailors made longer trips to Orkney and the West Coast and even to Shetland and around Ireland. In some years Findochty boats competed in the Banff to Stavanger Race across the North Sea.
Around 1995 the responsibility for the harbour transferred to Moray Council who look after it to this day. The pontoon which we today consider the “middle pontoon” was extended and soon after a third pontoon was installed to the west of the original two. The shallower water in the west of the harbour meant that mostly smaller boats berthed at this pontoon. Previously the smaller harbours of Cullen, Portknockie, and Findochty had their own Harbourmaster, then shared a Harbourmaster and eventually all were looked after from staff at the larger harbour of Buckie.
As sailors grew older the yacht racing declined in popularity. By 2013 a new interest was taking hold up and down the country. In December a talk on St Ayles Rowing Skiffs was given in Findochty Town Hall and a group of FWSC members got together and decided that we should build our own St Ayles Skiff. These skiffs are built to one design and sourced from one maker of the kits. They are thus as near identical as amateur builders can construct them. Construction started in 2014 in a building in Buckie and eventually our skiff named “Morag” after the wife of Bert Reid our skilled boatbuilder was launched with great ceremony on 18th October 2015.
This skiff soon became extremely popular and membership of FWSC increased to the point where we began to consider building a second skiff. A partly built skiff came on the market nearby and was duly purchased. This time a shed in Cullen was loaned to us for the completion, work commenced in October 2018 and “Morven” was completed in time for launch on 21st April 2019.
It was becoming clear that the pontoons in the harbour were in need of replacement and one had already been replaced when the other 2 suffered damage in the winter of 2019/2020 that forced their closure. As soon as Covid permitted the remaining boats were craned out. The council eventually identified funding for new pontoons. These were completed by the start of the 2022 season and boats were able to return to the water.
Because our skiffs are kept on land their use was not affected by the pontoon situation but Covid did restrict our rowing activities quite a bit. We endeavour to row the whole year round when weather permits. Although exposed to the North, Findochty and the Moray coast in general experiences good weather as much wind is from South East through to West and is much drier than some other parts of Scotland.