The Jacobite Navigational Rally took place on Saturday 6th December on a typical early winter night, with six crews participating across four classes. Leaving Dingwall from 7.30pm, we joined Map 21 on Old Evanton Road, and visited Foulis and Katewell before the first Control at Evanton, on roads not used for many years.

On to more familiar territory around Alness, Invergordon and Delny, the VW Polo of Experts Alan Radin and Graham Watson held an early advantage over Colin Christie and Dan Forsyth in their Suzuki Ignis as they turned back westwards from the midpoint. The threat of fog hanging between the trees looked like it might slow the pace, but apparently none of the drivers got the memo…

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With a brief visit to Scotsburn, we made for the Ardross Hall finish venue after a quick loop around Strathy, and as sole Non-Expert entrants, Beefy Fraser and Ross MacKay were going well in the VW Tiguan. With tougher navigation more closely matched to the Experts than Novices, and with only a couple of dropped codes, it was otherwise a fine outing.

Novices? Not for much longer, Jesse Wigman and Emma Garden brought the Citroen Dyane 6 out once again, and fared very well on all but one section, whilst Hugh Munro and Graham Norrie in their Range Rover Evoque incurred a cluster of penalties by taking one simple wrong turn leading to a bypassed Control. The lentil soup and sandwiches back at the hall were a welcome consolation prize.

Pete MacInnes and Neil McGregor took on the Historic class, with the 75-plate Hybrid Skoda Kodiaq showing a very unhistoric turn of speed (and economy!). Another excellent night by Neil brought them home with only 30 penalties, and valuable experience for the next outing.

Radin and Watson kept up their early momentum to run out overall Jacobite winners by the final Control, with the Christie/Forsyth team very close behind. Beefy and Ross took the Non-Expert, with Jesse and Emma taking the Novice win over Munro and Norrie. MacInnes and McGregor rounded off the results as top Historic. To round off a successful evening, Neil also produced the lowest tie-break time of only 20 seconds by deftly plot grid squares at opposite corners of the map!

The event saw a very supportive turnout of marshals and officials, warmly thanked by both the Clerk of Course and the winning navigator, and we now look forward to January’s Honkers Rally on the 17th, so make a date of it in your new year diary.