12 PORTS: OBAN – THE LITTLE BAY WITH A BIG REPUTATION

Taking its name from the Gaelic ‘an t-Òban’ (The Little Bay), the influence of this west coast hub since the turn of the 19th century has been anything but small.

Oban has been a harbour since the earliest times; its famous bay is sheltered by the island of Kerrera, while Dunollie Castle sits atop a hill, guarding the entrance. We know that King Haakon of Norway gathered his fleet of galleys in the bay before the battle of Largs in 1263.

However, the town and port of Oban started to become the hive of activity we know today in the 18th century, with a first Custom House established in 1765, and the “official” distillery in 1794.

Over the next two centuries, the small town has developed at pace, thanks to its port, and has played a game-changing role in connecting the isolated Hebridean islands. It was a strategic outpost during WWII and has become a testing ground for new technologies.

This maritime heritage and ideal coastal location made Oban the perfect choice for the relocation of the marine research laboratory now known as the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in 1969.

Now one of this rural town’s biggest employers, SAMS has helped to bring higher education to the area, as the research institute became a founding academic partner in the University of the Highlands and Islands. A fellow university partner, Argyll College, now also offers maritime skills courses from its Oban centre. Indeed, a conservative estimate of the student population of the town is 10 per cent of the resident 8,000 people.

The rapid expansion of Oban began with the construction of the Crinan Canal in 1801, which made water transport from the Clyde to the port of Oban safer and more reliable. By the 1850s, first David Hutchison and then his son in law, David Macbrayne, established the regular ferry services that revolutionised travel on the west coast. The ever-present and iconic black, white and red Caledonian MacBrayne ferries, as well as the pointed monument on the northern tip of Kerrera, the Hutchison Memorial, are a daily reminder of this feat.

Perhaps the biggest boost to Oban as a port came with the arrival of the railway, and the new railway pier in 1850. That meant that fish catches from Oban’s then considerable fishing fleet could be unloaded straight onto trains and delivered to the city markets overnight. Fishing became a major industry for the harbour. Sadly, that has declined in recent years, but as late as the 1970s there would be a mass exodus of boats from the Railway and South piers at one minute past midnight on a Monday morning. The Sabbath had been observed.

During the autumn of 2013, SAMS deployed state-of-the-art sonar technology to map the seabed in and around Oban Bay, an exercise that produced a surprising result. The bay was littered with the wreckage of flying boats, including Catalina, Short Sunderland and Saro Lerwick aircraft, damaged during the Second World War, when Oban was a base from which the Royal Air Force (RAF) Coastal Command Group defended the crucial North Atlantic convoys. Flying on such dangerous missions meant that pilots invariably had to negotiate landings on the water with parts of the aircraft badly damaged – another huge risk in itself.

Mapping the bay in this way meant charts more than 100 years old could be updated and the method has been used by SAMS elsewhere, as humans try to learn more about the deep ocean, an environment that remains alien to us and is less well explored than space. Divers and historians greeted the discovery of these wreckages in equal excitement, as Oban and the surrounding area was already regarded as a mecca for underwater enthusiasts.

Today Oban is a thriving port with, according to statistics, the largest number of daily ferry movements after Dover. It has always been a thriving hub for yachts and pleasure vessels, started by Queen Victoria visiting with the Royal yacht in 1847 and continuing with annual events such as West Highland Yachting Week, when the boat owners from the Clyde race in company up to Oban and Tobermory for the start of their summer cruise. The new North Pier visitor pontoons established just last year have boosted the number of marine visitors using Oban as the starting place for charter boat voyages and provided improved facilities for visiting cruise liners.

The future management of the port is now under discussion with plans for a possible Trust Port arrangement to combine the interests of the community as a whole with those of the strictly commercial interests. The busy port is currently home to CalMac Ferries Ltd and Northern Lighthouse Board and Royal National Lifeboat Institution stations, among others.

Oban has been known as the Gateway to the Isles, the seafood capital of the UK, a tourist town and now a university town and maritime hub. It is indeed a ‘little bay’, but one with a sizeable reputation and significant continuing role in the development of the local area, and in the maritime story of the UK.