The great thing about the Royal Corinthian One Design regatta is there is nowhere else to host it. Forget all the bother of loading up your boat to drive it to some corner of Europe, the hours waiting for a ferry, the chore of packing up after the last race and the long drive home brooding over that windshift that robbed you of certain victory. Instead after a few convivial drinks at the bar, simply walk up the pontoon and take the club launch to your boat. All the RCOD sailors can heartily recommend it! It’s even easier if the event coincides with the club’s Caribbean style Summer Party on the Saturday evening, which had an extra bit of frisson this year with Tony, the barman, wearing a rather fetching garland.

Once again, the fleet owes its thanks Edwin Buckley and Team Phoebe for laying on four races on Saturday and three on Sunday. The weather was brisk, the sun shone and the competition was fierce during four windward leeward and three river races. This year we invited the Royal Burnham One Designs to join and six pitched up for the first day with Edwin suggesting that we should all start together. With a turn-out of nine RCODs that made the start line challenging, potentially very expensive but a lot of fun which fortunately passed without incident. Two facts emerged from the weekend, the RBODs are consistently faster in a breeze than the RCODs and just as competitive as their sister fleet.

For the record, Chip Cole in White Rose, crewed by Nicola Hastwell and Rory Munro, made a clean sweep of the six RBODs that took part and next year hopefully more will join.  With these eighty year old plus wooden boats (nearly all looking in great condition), we have something special on the river and it is great to see the two clubs work together. As for the RCODs, it was hotly contested with fierce tacking duels throughout the fleet over the course of the two days. Justin Waples and Steve Rands with his daughter Elizabeth, secured victory with five wins, followed by John Reid who made his debut this year in Corinna with his son James. He was tied on points with Sue Law in Coralie (crewed by husband Ant and John Newcombe) but won on count back.  Here’s to a great regatta, to Team Phoebe and to John Waterhouse making a return to the water after a knee operation.