OPPOSITION

Opposition is a beautiful Classic Yacht and was moored at James Watt Dock at the Tall Ships event last week. She's a boat with an interesting history mainly because she used to be known as Morning Cloud (actually she was Morning Cloud II) which was the name of Ted Heath's yacht. (Actually that should be plural; he had four others.) She's a 12 metre wooden yacht built in 1971. She had a "complete restoration" in 2008.

There are some interesting sites on the web which tell of her history. One is here and another is here. I picked out a couple of stories from the second reference. It is the 2008 Obituary of Owen Parker, the man who was "Sir Edward Heath's sailing master, one of the best-known yachtsmen of his generation and managed all of Heath's Morning Cloud yachts and their crews."

"Attending the recent relaunch of Morning Cloud II, now named Opposition, at the Clare Lallow yard in Cowes that had built the yacht, Parker recounted how Heath had woken him during the Sydney-Hobart yacht race saying that the boat was surrounded by killer whales. "What should I do?" he asked. Parker answered "Pray, sir, pray", then rolled over and went back to sleep. Parker wrote about his experiences sailing with Heath in his book Tack Now Skipper (1979)."

"Parker remained as Heath's right-hand sailing man for the next 12 years, [after the tail end of the 1969 racing season] taking responsibility for his five Morning Cloud yachts and crews. When Heath became Prime Minister, Parker was given the task of liaising with the Security Services to work out a way of repatriating Heath should a government emergency arise. When a helicopter airlift was discussed, Parker asked: "What the hell are we supposed to do when all this is going on?" When told that the crew would be required to take down the sails and heave-to, he answered: "What? And lose precious seconds? Not bloody likely! If you want the skipper, we'll push him off in a dinghy and you can pick him up from there while we continue racing."