Fort Lytton at Night

Cruise Report | 25/11/2023

And now for something completely different. Members of the Sail Cruising group met up at Fort Lytton last Saturday evening for what proved to be a powerful and evocative dramatic performance exploring a lost story from the Great War. It followed the journey of Lieutenant Colonel Ray Stanley, a decorated war hero who served in Gallipoli and on the Western Front. The story was performed by professional actors as we were guided through the most interesting parts of the moated 19th century fortress that is Fort Lytton. This was an exclusive intimate performance for the 23 RQ members that attended and a measure of the extent to which it was enjoyed was the rapt attention evident throughout.

Aside from the  human story portrayed by the actors, we were shown one of the two 6″ Armstrong disappearing guns installed in 1888 which were pneumatically raised and lowered and could fire a 100 pound (45 kg) shell over a distance of nearly 13 km – very impressive engineering for the day.

Those of us who ventured to the venue by yacht anchored in the extensive margin south of the Lytton Reach shipping channel and used our tenders to commute to the Fort Lytton jetty. After the performance we were rewarded with a beautiful undisturbed night – and no issues recovering anchors the following morning despite ground debris misgivings!

Ross Letten,

Cruise captain