Roger Cox: Classic entertainment at the edge of the world

Published on Friday 23 October 2009 14:56

IT'S going to take more than adverse weather conditions to take the wind out of my sails

To the Inner Hebrides last week to catch the tail end of the Tiree Wave Classic – Scotland's premier windsurfing event. Note to self: next year, take more time off work so you can be there for the whole thing. The Classic has a ten-day waiting period to enable the organisers to run the contest whenever the wind and waves are at their best, and this year all the action happened on day two. By the time I got to the island (on day five) the wind had died and the competition had been put on hold pending an improvement in the conditions –an improvement that never came.

So what do professional windsurfers get up to when they can't go windsurfing? Well, for starters they play a lot of table tennis. German sailor Dany Bruch may only have finished third overall in the Wave Classic but he dominated the ping-pong table at the Hynish Centre, mercilessly destroying all comers.

Surfing was also a favoured option. In spite of the lack of wind there was a beautiful, long-interval west swell running throughout the week, so every day, once it was clear there wasn't enough wind for windsurfing, many of the pros bolted to the beaches at Balephuil and Balevulin to catch a few waves using good, old-fashioned, sail-less surfboards. And with no competition to report on, I spent most of my time in the water with them, enjoying some of the best waves I've had all year. Surfing must be one of the most sociable sports, largely because surfers spend so little time actually surfing and so much time sitting around waiting for waves.

I met Katie McAnena from Ireland, second overall in the ladies' contest but still bemoaning the fact that she "surfed like a numpty" in the early rounds. Surely she was happy enough with second place? "Yeah," she said, but with an expression that suggested she really meant "no".

Also in the water at Balevulin: a windsurfer called Chas from Wales who had entered the amateur category of the Wave Classic and finished a respectable second (out of two) in his first and only heat. This was his first visit to Tiree and he was clearly smitten with the place.

As you'd expect, pro windsurfers tend to make pretty handy surfers, but the stand-out surfer in this exalted company was Craig "Suds" Sutherland, owner of the local surf school and just as comfortable in big, barreling waves as he is in his front room. Scotsman photographer Jane Barlow took this shot of Suds at Balephuil on the final day of the Wave Classic's waiting period, proving that Tiree isn't just a world-class windsurfing destination, it's a world-class surfing destination as well.

Beach access has long been a thorny issue for surfers and windsurfers visiting Tiree. Understandably some of the locals are less than happy about hordes of people driving over their farmland in search of the perfect wave, and there have been occasional reports of stray waveriders being confronted by shotgun packin' crofters, telling them in no uncertain terms to "get off my land". But now a solution seems to be at hand, thanks to Alison Spence and John Bowler of the Tiree Access Group. Realising that most access conflicts come about due to a lack of clear signage, they have clearly cordoned off parking areas at Balevulin and Balephuil, a step that should both help protect the fragile machair and make life easier for tourists unsure about where to park. They are now planning to put similar measures in place at other beaches around the island, and in order to raise funds for this they are asking visitors to buy voluntary 10 parking permits from the Tiree Rural Centre by the airport. Bowler explains: "You're not going to be told to get off the beach if you haven't got one – that's not the ethos at all. We're just saying, if you enjoy coming here and you feel like you want to contribute to maintaining these places then please sign up, and most people do.

"Tiree's a very friendly island, it's very easy-going, and if there are only one or two cars going to different beaches then it's not a problem. But in the last five years, each year we've had more and more people coming and it's getting to the point where the island needs to manage the situation – it's no longer acceptable for people to just drive wherever they like because areas of the machair are getting eroded. The particular problem areas are the beach heads. I guess the big three would be Balevulin, which I think we've sorted out, Balephuil, which has also been resolved, and the Maze, which we're working on.

"We don't want to stop people going to the beach – we just want to manage the situation so they've got an obvious place where they can park."

• To find out more about the Tiree Wave Classic, visit www.tireewaveclassic.com To book a surfing lesson with Suds, visit www.surfschoolscotland.co.uk Out and About on Tiree, a guide for responsible visitors, can be downloaded at www.isleoftiree.com/history-nat-heritage.html

This article was first published in The Scotsman on 24 October 2009