Yellow Submarine

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At dawn on 8^th September 2005 HMS Blyth, a Royal Navy mine hunter, slipped in to sleepy Port Ellen on the Hebridean isle of Islay to collect some rather embarrassing lost property of theirs.  A submarine.

Local fisherman, John Baker,  fishing  7 miles from Bruichladdich discovered a large drum-like object floating beneath the surface - a hazard to shipping.  To his surprise it was a mini-submarine bristling with hi-tech surveillance equipment. There were Ministry of Defence markings.

Having towed it to port, the £500,000 submarine,  was craned out of the water and positioned on  the fisherman’s driveway. The MOD were dutifully alerted.

The MOD at first denied it was theirs, then denied the vessel was missing – then implied the fishermen must have stolen it. The fishermen at first, out of pique, refused to divulge it’s whereabouts. A stalemate ensued.

Local Carl Reavey: “For ten days this state-of-the-art, secret piece of spying kit was floating about the high seas and The Royal Navy couldn’t find it. And it had to be  yellow - bright yellow.”

Technically, a Royal Navel vessel cannot be claimed as salvage  - but this didn’t stop the speculation in the bars of Islay at how many millions the fishermen would  be rewarded. And they say there is no money in fishing anymore.

Bruichladdich Distillery CEO Mark Reynier: “People think Islay is a quiet, sleepy place. How wrong they are! If it’s not the CIA spying on us for WMD via our web cameras, then it must be the MOD snooping about under water up to goodness knows what. Whose next?

“We celebrated the WMD event with a special bottling of our single malt: “WMD – The Weapons Inspectors” that was a great success. So our latest launch (so to speak) had obviously to be  “WMD II – The Yellow Submarine” . And it goes down well too”.

The submarine was loaded in double quick time and the ship departed. The skipper, was pleased to accept a gift of a case of the Bruichladdich “Yellow Submarine”.

As the Submarine was loaded aboard, Fisherman John Baker asked the Man from the Ministry what the large silver protuberance on the submarine’s belly was.  He was startled to learn that it was a depth charge.  Fortunately for him - unarmed.

Post script

The somewhat humourless press office of the MOD have suggested there are  inaccuracies in our version of events described above: there was no hazard to shipping, a ransom had been demanded for the return of the vessel, there was no accusation of theft, and the coastguard had been alerted to the loss of the  submarine.

We believe that a 1 ton submarine floating under the surface for 10 days is a hazard to shipping. There was no ransom demand made by the fishermen. The MOD said: “There is no way that this vessel was where the fishermen said  they found it”. And the coastguard were entirely unaware of the loss of the vehicle – when the find was reported by the fishermen to them. One of the finders is even the  local submarine liaison officer!

The bottling is a mighty fine dram. Customers for the WMD II have  included the submarine manufacturer, Lieutenant Commander Donald Crosby the skipper that lost the submarine in the first place,  and of course…. the MOD.

Bright Yellow Submarine

In Islay where he was born
Lived Hastie who fished the sea
And he told us of his dream
and his find of a submarine

How he sailed west to the sun
surrounded by a sea of green
And he saw beneath the waves
a bright yellow submarine

We all want a yellow submarine…

And friends are in the Ardview
Many more of them pissed there too
The salvage begins to pay

We all love a yellow Submarine…

(Bruichladdich!, Barman Bruichladdich!
A Laddie over here, sir!
Last Orders! Last Orders!
Aye, aye, sir!
Heaven! Heaven!)

Now he lives a life of ease
he sure has all he needs
Cars of blue and ships of green
’cos of his yellow submarine

We all need a yellow submarine…

(After Lennon/McCartney)