Firth of Forth Raid

Dates: Monday 21 – Friday 26 July 2025

The Raid will be based at the Cragleith House, Fettes College, Edinburgh with sailing from Granton Harbour and the Royal Forth Yacht Club, as well as Port Edgar Marina at Queensferry (but see below in Accommodation section)

Craigleith House (https://fettesthevenue.com/en-suiteaccommodation/) provides accommodation in 11 twin-bedded rooms whilst the rest is in single-bedded rooms. All rooms are en-suite.

Within the accommodation price, Fettes will provide Breakfast, a packed Lunch and 3-course Dinner for each participant. At the moment they are unwilling, for safeguarding reasons, to provide meals for non-residents.

They are also unwilling to allow camper van living on-site.

Regretfully, this means that at this stage we are unable to take Raid bookings for live-aboards or those who wish to stay in camper vans, although of course a camper van may be used as a means of transport.

Trailers can be parked at the RFYC after launching. Due to tidal restrictions we may move the fleet to Port Edgar on Wednesday afternoon/evening for the Thursday and Friday sailing. However, there are currently plans to dredge Granton Harbour in early 2025 which may mean that this is unnecessary. Sailing will take place to some or all of Aberdour, Crammond, Buntisland, Fisherrow, North Queensferry, Limekilns and Charleston etc.

Please note that we will probably be limited to 20-25 boats so please register your interest soonest.

The exact programme needs to remain as flexible as possible and will depend on tidal and weather conditions.  The programme below is highly speculative and aspirational at this stage.

Thus, apart from Monday and Friday evening/Saturday am and the evening eating arrangements, everything is fluid.

Monday 21st July 2025

Day:

Arrival and registration

Launch boats up to 17:00

Evening:

19.00 Welcome reception at Craigleith House

19:30 Supper

Tuesday 22nd, Wednesday 23rd, Thursday 24th July 2025

Breakfast 07.30- 08.30

Briefing 09.00

Sail

Lunch

Return

Supper

Friday 25th July 2025

Breakfast 07.30- 08.30

Briefing 09.00

Sail

Lunch

Recovery of boats by 17:00 – using both the slip at the marina and at the Outdoor Centre

Supper

Saturday 26th July 2025

Breakfast 07.30- 08.30

Depart Fettes by 09:00

ACCOMMODATION:

Details of the accommodation can be found here

https://fettesthevenue.com/en-suiteaccommodation/

The School is not licensed to sell alcohol, but you are welcome to bring your own. Fettes appears to be encircled by Waitrose, Morrisions, Sainsbury’s Tesco, Co-op, Lidl, and CostCutter all between 0.6 and 1.5 miles away. Dying of thirst is therefore unlikely to be on any risk assessment.

We have arranged to base the fleet at Granton Harbour, using the facilities of the Royal Forth Yacht Club (https://www.royalforth.org/) whose help is greatly appreciated.

At the moment, due to the tides at the time of the Raid, we are due to move (on Wednesday evening) to Port Edgar for the Thursday and Friday sailing days. However, Granton harbour is due to have some dredging done in early 2025 which may make this unnecessary.

FOOD:

All Raiders will be provided with:

• Breakfast at Craigleith House Tuesday to Saturday
• Packed lunches Tuesday to Friday
• Supper Monday to Friday evenings

COST:

The cost of the raid is as follows (this includes 5 breakfasts, 4 packed lunches, 5 dinners, mooring fees, car and trailer parking).

£640 per person (arrive Monday, depart Saturday).
There are a limited number of twin-bedded rooms. Please note that all rooms, including the single rooms are en-suite.

Due to the deposit required from Fettes I am required to ask for a higher than normal deposit this year of £105 per person.  If a booking is cancelled after the initial deposit is received it may be possible to refund it after the Raid once all bills are settled if funds permit.  However this is not guaranteed.

402410, 61420933 and Raid England are the details you will need if making a BACS transfer. If you are making an overseas transfer you will need to know that HSBC is the bank, Market Place, Henley-on-Thames, UK is the address together with some or all of the below.  Please can you “pay” the transfer fees as well because UK banks charge us a lot for accepting money from outside the UK, but contact me first to discuss the best way of paying.

IBAN:GB21MIDL40241061420933

BIC:MIDLGB2113V

I now believe that one of the new transfer agents like Transferwise (https://transferwise.com) offer a very good service and great exchange rates.  I have used them for sending Euros when registering for various events in Europe (Morbihan, Venice, Douarnenez) and various ski trips. and they can obviously send sterling to the UK.

If you use this link (https://transferwise.com/u/geoffreyp23) apparently I will get some money which I will use to buy drinks (for the group, not me) at one of the Raid evenings.

geoffprobertatgmaildotcom

(substitute at & dot with the more normal symbols in order to defeat the automated spammers)