The biggest private yacht in "The World"

The biggest private residential yacht in the world was docked in Wick Bay for two days this week. "The World" was on her way to Norway and stopped off at Wick as the owner of Ackergill Tower is one of the residents on the yacht. The owners of the 165 apartments on the 43,000 Tonnes yacht, were entertained at Ackergill Tower and visited The Castle of Mey and Old Pulteney Distillery. The night shot was taken just before midnight on Friday night.

Pentland Utd vs Halkirk

Pentland Utd beat Halkirk 1-0 in Dunnet last night in the Highland Amateur cup.  I arrived during the second half to find that I just missed all the main action. Utd scored with a highly debated goal. James Murray hit a screamer which hit the bar and bounced on the line.  The Halkirk team and some of the crowd thought it did not cross the line, but ref Johhny Munro awarded the goal.

Mark Nichol then took a penalty soon after, but he hit it straight at the keeper and Lee Allan saved it.

Halkirk gave as good as they got, but could not get past the defence marshalled by the strong Steven brothers.  James More was a trialist in goals for Utd.

In the other Highland amateur cup games, the scores were;

Carloway 4 vs Castletown 0
Ness 1 vs Wick Groats 5
Keiss 0 vs Back 10
Avoch 3 vs Acks 0

4th round draw (2nd July)

Culbokie vs Wick Groats
Avoch vs Pentland Utd
Carloway vs Kirkwall Rovers
Back vs Golspie Stafford

Eilan Donan Castle

I stopped off at Eilan Donan Castle in Wester Ross, on my way to the Outer Hebrides last week. It was grey, dull and misty, plus the tide was out, so hard to get a decent "postcard" photo.  The place was jammed packed with tourists.

Caithness Utd award

Caithness Utd's under 15 player of the year is Connor Jackson, Halkirk and he received the Turner trophy from Halkirk's Shane Sutherland, who plays for Inverness Caledonian Thistle.

Thurso Swifts vs Castletown

I caught some of the league match between Thurso Swifts and Castletown, played at the Dammies tonight. Martin Murray scored with a screamer (some spectators thought it was meant to be a cross) to put Castletown 1-0 up in the first half and it stayed that way until I left with 10 mins to go.
There was quite a large crowd watching the match in perfect weather. Swifts fielded a trialist who used to play for Nairn County.

Fashion

I have just bought a software "plug-in" for Photoshop which has lots of different effects and tried it out on some of last year's fashion shoots pics with Courtny and Isla.

Caithness Shears competition

Charles McCombie (Junior & Intermediate), Hamish Mitchell (Open), Stewart Kennedy (Seniors)



The busy platform with 4 clippers at a time




Hamish Mitchell




Grant Lundie




Gavin Mutch




Simon Bedwell



Alan MacKay




Andrew Sinclair




Andrew Sinclair

 


The team of wool rollers

The annual Caithness Shears competition is part of the Scottish Sheep Shearing circuit and was held today at the Quoybrae auction mart near Watten. It attracted the best shearers from all over the world, including Gavin Mutch from New Zealand, who just missed out on becoming the 2010 Machine World Champion at the world championships in Wales last year. There were a few ex-Scottish champions competing.

There was big money to be had and the winner of the Open class won £350.  Andrew Sinclair from Wick made the finals of the Intermerdiate and Senior classes, but found the world class competition too tough.

Simon Bedwell clipped 16 sheep in 15 mins 1 sec in the open final and was the fastest, but still only came 3rd as there are points for technique and the finish of the sheep. The scoring system was computerised and the results were announced within minutes of the finish.

Winners;

Open - Hamish Mitchell, Norway (2nd Gavin Mutch, 3rd Simon Bedwell, 4th Grant Lundie)
Seniors - Stewart Kennedy, Aberfeldy (2nd Alex Riding, 3rd Ross Gibson, 4th Andrew Sinclair)
Intermediate  - Charles McCombie, Huntly (2nd Alex Riding, 3rd Ross Gibson, 4th Andrew Sinclair)
Juniors - Charles McCombie (2nd Alan MacKay, 3rd John MacAulay, 4th Allan Cowie)