Highland games "Cowal Games", held in Dunoon, Scotland, every August, is the largest Highland games in the world, attracting around 3,500 competitors and somewhere in the region of 23,000 spectators from around the globe. Worldwide, however, it is exceeded in terms of spectators by two gatherings in the United States: the estimated 30,000 that attend Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina and the even larger gathering—the largest in the Northern Hemisphere—that has taken place every year since 1866. This event is currently held on Labor Day weekend in Pleasanton, California, and their Sesquicentennial Games held on September 5–6, 2015, attracted record crowds close
MV Cowal the last vessel to receive the new CalMac livery, retaining the vivid CSP yellow funnel until 1974. After 24 years' service, she was laid up in East India Harbour, Greenock from early June 1977. Surviving a galley-fire on 9 June, she was moved to the James Watt Dock in 1978 and offered for sale. Increasingly forlorn and "cannibalised" for parts to keep "Arran" running, "Cowal" was finally sold to Phetouris Ferries in Greece on 5 January 1979, and left under tow for Perama on 15 May. Despite the tow parting in the Bay of Biscay, she arrived in Piraeus, and