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Boat trips are a way to spend your time in Scotland in a different manner. Most tourists don't know what they're missing out on by not exploring this opportunity.

A boat is sometimes the only means you can use to reach a point of interest. Along sailing routes in Scotland there are many tourist attractions. Most of them lie on the West Coast of Scotland such as St Kilda, the remotest part of the British Isles, Staffa with its Fingal's Cave which inspired Mendelsshon to write the Hebrides Overture and the Isle of Iona, home of the Irish monk, St Columba. These can only be accessed by boat and trips can be arranged easily in the summer from places like Oban.

Tobermory has always been a most convenient harbour for yachtsmen: a place to wait for a fair wind for Ardnamurchan, within easy reach of stores and hostelries and a very welcome haven for the southbound yacht that has just rounded that intimidating headland. From the very first days of west coast yachting, Tobermory was a favorite port of call - yachts with names like the "Water Lilly", the "Hebe" and "Fleur de Lys", brought in the summers of the 1860's, and in July 1877 Alexander Allen in the yawl "Vanda", his cousin Bryce in the schooner "Claibel" and Mr. MacDonald, proprietor of the MacDonald Arms, in a sloop challenged each other in a local race round Calve Island. The "Round Calve" has become a venerable tradition and at the end of the century, the Mull, Morvern and Ardnamurchan Sailing Club started another tradition with its regatta .. By now there were several local enthusiasts - R.J.Brown for instance, son of the founder of Brown's shops, bought the "Omira II " in 1904. Regatta programmes of the time had classes of sailing yachts, pleasure boats, fishing skiffs, yachts' gigs, rowing boats (two oared, four oared and tradesmen's), as well as duck hunt, greasy pole, swimming events and a tug of war - Tobermory against all-comers, and of course there was the regatta concert to round off the day.

Between the wars local boating went into decline but the big yachts of the wealthy continued to bring glamour to the bay. The cruising side of the sport was not, however, confined to the grand boats of wealthy industrialists. C.C. Lynam, a schoolmaster who built a 25 foot boat, the "Blue Dragon" at Oxford and sailed from there to the west coast of Scotland was a frequent visitor to Tobermory, and the Matheson brothers, founder members of the Clyde Cruising Club, gave first place to Tobermory in their account of a cruise in the ten ton "Patsy" in 1910. Today the Clyde Cruising Club's Tobermory race from Crinan brings over 200 yachts into the bay.

In 1936 the Western Isles Club was formed with a membership of 124 with the object of "the encouragement of yachting, sailing, rowing, swimming and other aquatic sports throughout the Western Seaboard and Islands of Scotland". To this end they continued to hold a successful annual regatta and in 1959 proposed to incorporate this in West Highland Week. At one time it seemed that this premier racing event run by an amalgamation of several west coast clubs was to take over, and the whole of the W.I.Y.C's activities would revolve round this fixture. Latterly however there has been a return to a more varied calendar.