To the Regatta!… on Saturday afternoon. I tell a lie. I had already been down to the Quayside once to help set up the WivGigs stall. That’s my good deed done for the day. I can walk away now?
The wind had picked up slightly shortly after midday as I made my way back down to the front. These were perfect conditions for racing.
It was spot on if you were racing something which had a big sheet attached to it to catch the wind. Not so if you were bobbing up and down in a small wooden boat, fighting against the wind with two pairs of oars.
We decided to take a strategic walk from east to west along the quay. Or was it west to east? The heat does get to me and I get a little confused with even these basic local geographical positioning.
The first stalls started to appear around the old sailing club hard. SHOUT OUT to our friendly rowing rivals, Corsairs. It can be a right pain in the arse to organise these Regatta stalls. Corsairs had done a fantastic job.
Drawing plenty of attention was the human fruit machine. Young kids were lining up to hand over their hard-earned pocket money. A lever was pulled by the ankle biters and then three charming Corsairs club members made a swirling motion before revealing which fruit each one had landed on.
Similar to previous years, there was a pirate trail forming part of the Regatta. This is an ace idea. It’s mainly aimed at the young folk. The idea is that they head all along the Regatta stretch and pick up a sticker at each stall. It’s a crafty way of getting footfall from one end of the quay all the way over to the Sailing Club.
The pirate theme was taken a little further by one particular well-known house. It had a fantastic human-sized Wurzel Gummidge-style pirate. Wearing the head this year was everyone’s favourite fascist, Nigel Farage. Pieces of eight, etc.
My main contention with the Regatta each year is that I never normally get to see any racing. I made a point of correcting this. For 2026 we took up a position along the public jetty and watched as a series of Wivenhoe One Designs, some more modern dinghies, and some larger yachts making their way upstream. It was choppy waters out there.
And then from the distance up came Varuna, the second WivGigs boat. I had a brief conversation with the cox. It looked bloody hard work. She said launching had been something of a demolition derby.
We took up sanctuary down at the sailing club. This is a lot more chilled on Regatta day. I was tempted to hit the BOOZE, but with so many local people around I knew I would only make an absolute dick of myself.
Chin chin.
Cutting a lone figure down on the sailing club hard was one young chap who had been building his raft since early morning. The raft race is often the highlight of the Regatta.
He had taken innovation to a new level by customising an old wooden bed frame. There’s no way that’s going to float, fella.
We walked past the WivGigs stall and a few friendly conversations later and I had talked myself into talking into taking over the raffle. This wasn’t part of the itinerary.
I spent a pleasant hour however, rallying for the cause and doing my best sales pitch. I have to confess I’m half decent at this. I do miss my Saturday morning job working on the record stall back in Vicky Market.
The only downside was that Mr Punch was doing his wife-beating thing opposite us. To be fair to the big-nosed fella, Punch and Judy 2026 is a lot more acceptable in the modern world.
There was something of a star-struck Rebels moment when one of the leading men’s players walked past. I had been quite content to do my wheeling and dealing Del Boy thing with my buy a raffle ticket one-liners. I admit to being a little overwhelmed by seeing one of the Rebs walk past looking an absolute dude.
The raft race was about to begin down by the old hard. I made my excuses and left the WivGigs stall. It was absolute chaos down there. It’s always absolute chaos for the raft race when launching.
To my surprise the floating bed was actually floating. It was also doing rather well, coming in a decent second in the very short form course. I’m not sure why but the cop boat was also circling the various rafts.
It all got a little too much for one young lady standing next to me. She had something of a box park football scene. Rather than chucking her pint of lager in the air in celebration, she let slip with her glass of red. No worries Madam, but it did land all over my immaculately OCD clean Vans trainers. I went home in a sulk.
Regatta Day. Always fun, yeah?
