August 2018

6th August – Further to our entry on the 12th July, regarding the yacht Archimedes visiting Stromness, it has turned up in Bristol and was reported on the BBC.

A luxury superyacht which docked in Bristol on Sunday has been described by harbour masters as “one of the largest” ships ever to visit the city. “Archimedes”, owned by American billionaire James Simons, is worth an estimated £75m. The 68m (223 ft) luxury motor vessel was built in 2008 and has a top speed of 16 knots. It is not known whether Mr Simons, who founded private hedge fund Renaissance Technologies in 1982, was on board.                                                           

I assume he wasn’t on board when the boat was in Stromness as we weren’t invited to dinner! See the Per Mare page for a tour of Archimedes.

7th August – The Jubilee Sailing Trust do great work offering maritime adventures for people with all levels of disability. They run two Tall Ships in the North Atlantic and around Europe, this is Lord Nelson arriving in Stromness this morning.

18th August – Took a break from packing to visit the archaeological dig at the Ness of Brodgar. The site closes next week as the archaeology students go back to their respective universities. The dig gets covered with a layer of tarpaulins and old tyres to protect it over the winter.

It is believed the site was continuously occupied for about a thousand years, from 3300 BCE to 2300 BCE. Hundreds of neolithic artefacts have been found, from pottery shards to stone axe heads, all beautifully manufactured. The standard of the masonry work is impressive, considering it is some 5000 years old. Only a fraction has been uncovered so far, and the Ness has many secrets yet to be revealed.

21st August – Local company, Scotrenewables Ltd, have announced that their experimental tidal energy turbine, near Eday, has generated more electricity in its first year than Scotland’s entire wave and tidal sector produced before it. It has now generated three gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity from near continuous operation. The company thinks this one unit alone could generate 25% of Orkney’s electricity.

© Scotrenewables Ltd

© Scotrenewables Ltd

Another “first” for them is generation of hydrogen from the wave technology. Orkney Island Council now run hydrogen powered vans and are going to convert their ferries to hydrogen also.

OIC Hydrogen Van

Renewables Layout

All very “green”! We might look into a hydrogen car for ourselves.

24th August – Urrgh! Bubble wrap and boxes! If I see another box…

I think we’ve actually boxed ourselves in……help!!!

30th August – Belinda and James Richardson are in Stromness today on their fundraising anti-clockwise tour of all the lifeboat stations in the UK. They’ve 238 to visit in all, with 3 being in Orkney.

Here they are with the Stromness boat and crew and the Richardson’s classy Porsche 911.

Go to September 2018