The SkiffieWorlds are one of Stranraer’s success stories. An article in the Scotsman on Saturday described the coastal rowing championships as ‘the celebration of community in a town that refused to become a backwater’. It reflects ‘the ambition of a community refusing to accept decline as inevitable’ – and indeed is ‘one of Scotland’s most remarkable community regeneration stories’. Last time round, between 20,000 and 30,000 visitors descended on the town – bringing in an estimated £3.5 to £4 million for the local economy. This time is the biggest ever with a record-breaking 79 teams taking part.
You don’t have to look too far in the Bible to find stories about boats: from Jonah being thrown overboard, to Jesus and his (mostly) fishermen disciples on the Sea of Galilee, to the three shipwrecks of the Apostle Paul. In fact, at eight miles across, the Sea of Galilee, that Jesus and the disciples frequently crossed, is the same width as Loch Ryan is long.
One story involving Jesus, the disciples and the water, took place when Jesus told them to cross those eight miles of the Sea of Galilee to the other side. Partway across however, a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, which began to fill with water.
We can tell how bad a storm it was from how the disciples react. Many of them were experienced fishermen. They knew this stretch of water like the back of their hands. They had seen in all. But when this storms hits, they’re absolutely terrified.
And yet despite all this, Jesus was in the stern of the boat, asleep on a cushion – the only time in the gospels we read about him sleeping. But the disciples wake him and say ‘Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?’ And then we read the remarkable words: ‘And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm’.
It’s not that the storm merely started to subside when he spoke. In a split second it became as still as glass. And how do the disciples react? Well they were ‘afraid’ before. But now they were ‘filled with great fear’.
Why? Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. These were men who had been brought up living and breathing the Old Testament. It was in their veins. And they knew that what Jesus had just done is something taken right out of Psalm 107. Calming a storm like this was something the Bible described only God as doing.
Psalm 107 talks about men who’re at their wits’ end. They cry to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivers them from their distress. He makes the storm be still and the waves of the sea be silent. And that’s exactly what Jesus does here. Someone has said: ‘The elements knew the voice of their Master, and, like obedient servants, were quiet at once.’
At this point the disciples realise that an event which they’ve been singing about all their lives has just happened in front of their very eyes. Which can only mean that this man they’ve been travelling around with, eating with and talking to – is God himself. And so no wonder that ‘they were filled with great fear and said to one another “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”’
During the storm, the disciples were fearful in the sense of timid or cowardly. But a different word for fear is used to describe their response to Jesus calming it. It refers to an appropriate fear. Because if you think about it, sometimes fear is healthy. If you’re working with electricity there’s a healthy kind of fear which won’t leave you a shivering wreck, but it will mean there are certain things you won’t do. You realise the power that electricity has – and so you act accordingly. And in the same way if we truly realised the power that God has, we would act accordingly. But amazingly that doesn’t mean running from him – but to him. So often we fear the wrong things, like what other people will think of us. But don’t let the opinion of others keep you away.
The best illustration of all this comes from ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’. Four children arrive in a land of talking animals and find out that they’re going to be meeting Aslan, the great lion. When they find out he’s a lion they ask: ‘Is he quite safe?’ To which the response they get is: ‘Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you’.
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 10th July 2025