PICTURES: 'Far exceeded my expectations' – First-time visitors praise Portsoy's Scottish Traditional Boat Festival
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SPEAKING at the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival (STBF) at Portsoy, first-time visitors from near and far shared glowing reviews.
Short spells of driving wind and rain lashed the harbour and left some stallholders clinging on to their tents, but the outlook of visitors to the 30th anniversary event stayed sunny.
Sandy and Kathleen Gray had never attended the festival before, despite living in Turriff.
And, leaving home on Saturday morning, they had no idea the day would break their boat festival dry spell.
"This morning, we set out to go to Macduff for our fish," Mr Gray said.
"We've got a bit side-tracked though, and we ended up here.
"We'll maybe get our fish later on."
Both agreed that the festival was "looking good" and a much busier event than they had expected.
Mr Gray said: "It's looking good, the festival.
"Hopefully the rain will stay off.
"There's a lot more folk here than I thought, but I suppose it's been going on for quite a few years now."
Many made long journeys to attend the STBF.
Ron Chubb made the 12 hour drive to Portsoy from his home in Longford, Essex to attend the boat festival for the first time.
He learned about the STBF during his last visit to the village in November 2022, and he knew he needed to make another Portsoy pilgrimage to see the event for himself.
But out of everything on offer at the "very good" event, he said the wide range of food and drink had him most excited.
"So far it has been very good," Mr Chubb said.
"Unless the weather turns bad again, that is.
"We came up here in November last year, because we were visiting a friend.
"As we were looking at that trip, we saw that the town had a boat festival.
"So we decided to come back up and have a look.
"The bit I'm most looking forward to is all the drinking and the eating."
Michael and Margaret Hughes from Cambuslang were on holiday, staying at a self-catering Airbnb property by the Sunday House Tearoom in Boyndie.
The couple were visiting villages along the north-east coast when they were lucky enough to catch Portsoy's historic harbour at its bustling best.
Mr Hughes, who stressed he was "a republican who wants Scottish independence", said the Portosy STBF, which was opened by HRH The Princess Royal, "far exceeded my expectations" during his first visit.
He picked out his "fascinating" conversation with the Coracle Society about how they build their tiny, bowl-shaped boats as his highlight.
And he praised a "lovely meal" he and his wife enjoyed at Aspire Restaurant the night before.
"I've heard about the festival before, a few times, and I wanted to go," Mr Hughes said.
"It has far exceeded my expectations.
"For me, I would say the highlight was talking to the coracle builders.
"It was fascinating to hear about the history and how much goes into making those boats, which – at first – look they are made out of wood and binbags.
"And we had a lovely meal at Aspire Restaurant, in an old church, and it is a young chef who has renovated it all.
"We are going back there tonight."
Mrs Hughes singled out the local crafts which were available at the festival, and had bought some pen drawings from a "young, local artist".
"We've enjoyed ourselves so far," she said.
"And we bought a pen drawing from a young, local artist in the craft shop.
"He had some beautiful landscapes on sale there."
A hit among all first time visitors was the raft race, a boat festival mainstay.
Summing up the contest from the Main Stage, event host Andrew Martin said: "It will be chaos – but good chaos."
The winning crew, of David Forsyth, Chris Sutherland and Matty Smith, from Portsoy Fire Station, claimed a second win in a row, beating out the squad from the Portsoy Outdoor Pool in a "too close for comfort" showdown.
Three other barrel and plank rafts also took part, including: a coastguard team; a pair of medieval knights and their king; and the last-place team – of which one member front-flipped overboard to become, arguably, the people's champion.
Matty Smith, of the Fire Station raft, said: "They made it harder this year, because now you have to go around the buoy and then come up the harbour.
"The Indoor Pool gave us a good battle – it was a bit too close for comfort like.
"It's my birthday today though, so we were always going to win.
"You always win on your birthday."
