Mention canals to people and some will conjure up romantic weekends in Venice whilst others will blanche at the recollection of the pain and expense of dental root work. The Caledonian Canal falls more into the former category with its spectacularly beautiful scenery  but after a day of slow speeds and lots of locks en route to Inverness, some of the competitors in the Round Britain Powerboat Race could have been forgiven for tending towards thoughts of the latter.

Inverness is nothing if not eclectic. A quiet meander down the main street and a selection of bars catering for expatriate Poles, Czechoslovakians and Croatians lie cheek by jowl with drinking dens sporting fruit machines and big banners welcoming the tartan army. An army of an entirely different hue fought tooth and nail at Culloden, just five miles away; their fight then was for the tartan, which they lost, along with their Pretender king and their lands but the battles raging around Inverness today were more technical if no less fervent.

At one point this afternoon, there were representatives of at least four teams in the air across the UK and Europe seeking parts to keep their racing hopes alive and one of these was Jonathan Napier, owner/driver of the Team 747 Fairey Spearfish.

The transit of the Caledonian Canal is a seminal moment in the circuit of Britain and some teams professed to be doing the race just to experience it. In 1969, the weather was so hot that teams indulged in water fights when they rafted up at each flight of locks but this year was wet and to do the transit from Fort William to Inverness requires an early start.

As the three Faireys, Xanthus, Swordsman and Team 747 began the run from Oban to the canal at Fort William, Team 747 struck an underwater obstruction hard enough to bend the propeller blades on one side and bend the shaft. Back at Oban and after craning out, Jonathan found himself on the way to Hamble Propellers via Glasgow, to collect a replacement shaft and have his bent wheel fettled anew, while having plugged the shaft hole, the rest of the crew began the canal transit on one engine, very slowly.

Thursday’s lay day is likely to be spent bringing all the constituent parts of Team 747 back together, in the expectation that they will be on the start line on Friday for the run south down the East Coast.