The first Scottish island Hamish Haswell-Smith visited was Gigha, where he enjoyed a family holiday in the early 1970s. ‘We shared the ferry with sheep,’ he said, smiling at the memory. Once ashore his then nine-year-old son, Iain, was rooted to the spot when a wild bird landed on his shoulder. ‘It was marvellous, completely unspoilt,’ added Hamish, sitting in the studio of his detached home on the outskirts of Edinburgh, as his wife Jean brought coffee.
He learnt to sail not on the Clyde, which windds through Glasgow, the city of his birth, but on sailing dinghies in Uganda where he worked as a young architect. ‘The presence of crocodiles taught me quickly how to balance the boat,’ he said. He’d got the sailing bug and upon his return…
