A few months ago I was sitting in a boat during Antigua’s ClassicYacht Regatta, a little too close to the racing for comfort. Many of the sleekly designed sailing craft had been fitted out with sails made from a new type of go-faster fabric. The aesthetic effect wasn’t that appealing, as the sails looked grey rather than white…
But nothing can convey the speed of those hulls whooshing through the water, the sound of the spinnakers flapping down around the masts, the awe-inspiring size of the sails, or the crazy scampering of activity on deck as the yachts turned about. You can probably appreciate the precarious angles and breathtaking closeness from these photographs. And, by the way, this was fairly rough sailing weather for Antigua.
A far cry from the conditions at Cowes Week, the largest regatta of its kind in the world, which starts today, with 40 races daily, for over 1,000 boats and about 8,500 competitors.
To me, sailing in UK waters conjures up visions of flasks of tea, foul weather gear, windswept hair, frayed tempers, broken nails, sunburned noses, soggy sandwiches, numb fingers – and, frankly, downright dangerous conditions (as the first half of this video shows).
I’m curious to know how the Home Counties sailing set acquired such a glamorous image? Might this have something to do with Howard’s Way?
Here’s a snippet of the wonderfully cheesy theme tune.
Things with sails, surely mankind’s towering acheivement in the practical-plus-aesthetics business. I’m a sucker for them, though more in the spectator/dreamer line than actively driving the things. Some of the above look more like hot air balloons, mind.
You raise an interesting question re sport and class. Yachting for toffs but a rung below horsies, rugger for the middle classes, football for the oiks, boxing for toffs and oiks and misses out the middle. Is cricket the only game for all strata?
Looks idyllic Susan, wet when warm not a problem, wet when cold, strictly for the masochistic tendency. Once invited by a friend to ‘join us on the annual Norway bash’ from the Northumberland coast to the Norwegian coast. Foolishly I agreed, the bash consisted of drink, sail, drink. Absolutely no idea what happened except for the cold, wet and noise. Never again, the Dolomites in November are drier.
The terminology is a hoot..tackjibecleat, spinnaker, very Wickermanish.
Sailing never struck me as glam. I think it was the call of the wild. You spend the week toiling away in the big city in some psycho-haunted office but then, whoosh, a few hours later you can be 20-30 miles out to sea. You are in a wilderness, humankind has vanished and you might as well be on the moon. Even the storms are part of it. They make you feel alive. Not for everyone but we all need a strong shot of the Right Stuff from time to time and there is not much of that around in the Home Counties. God save me from golf. Those are great pictures. Thank you for posting them.
Not sure about the class thing, Brit. Sailing set types seem very in the middle to me – all those blazers and shiny buttons in the yacht club and pootling around under motor-sail. And how many of the big racing yachts are privately owned – most seem to be under corporate sponsorship. Then there are the designer super-yachts (which aren’t yachts at all) at the
vulgar‘luxury’ end of the market.Wonderfully Wickermanish terms, malty. Just about know my port from my starboard, despite quite a few sailing holidays (mainly in the role of ornamental ballast). Funny how drinking and sailing seem to go together – probably not the best idea, really. Vague recollections of winning a Karaoke contest at Foxy’s in Jost van Dyke – under the influence of near-lethal rum somethingorother. Was sick for a week after that.
I agree, Mark, sailing can be a fabulous escape from the rat race – though preferably somewhere warm and sunny. As for glamour, judging from my curiously gaudy get-up in this funny old photo, perhaps I’m not the best person to comment…
Lovely images Susan – if only the Solent could look like this more often.
Class divisions in sport all evaporate under closer examination, and certainly none of the sailors I know are remotely upper class. Unusually financially successful yes, but all kinds of origins really.
Well yes, as your incomparable Row Z myth-busting has often demonstrated… but you can allow us some generalisations, James? Perhaps that’s your next challenge: why darts is posher than polo…
Darts is posher than polo because I played it…
No, I did: I was given a dartboard when I was eleven, and, John Lowe’s informative memoir-cum-manual in hand, played with a teenage boy’s intensity for 3 years or so.
At 14, my father took me into a pub for the first time – in Devon somewhere – where I whipped all comers for a delirious evening. I remember finishing one leg treble-18, bull, and the watching eyes, the strange quiet in the bar around me.
I genuinely wonder what would have happened had that evening not sated my appetite in the way it did. For a while, I was very, very good. Funny old world.
From the other side of the tracks, here’s Katie Price at the polo. And no, no one is allowed any generalizations. So there.
I doff my hat to you, sir.
We have omitted to mention the most elegant of pub sports, the chess of the tap room, the Tap & Spiles crowd puller, dominoes, that most cerebral of table games, requiring a touch like a midwife and the rapier like mind of a card sharpener. Ranches have been won or lost on a badly placed five and three, inheritances frittered, the silver lost forever on an ill thought out double three.
The Britannia inn in the Lake Districts Elterwater was the mecca, the local hot shots never under 65, the king of the snug so old they called him granddad. Many an unwary weekend grockle has lost his shirt, sent out into the stygian Langdale darkness wearing nothing but his St Michaels.
Astounding theory No 301…pub games are an invention of the toffs used to keep the plebs in check, much as the child psychology trade uses Ritalin to keep the kiddywinks calm.
‘King of the Snug’ is a title worth having.
Wow! Howard’s Way was indeed one big chunk of cheese. Wonder if I can download the theme song from itunes for my Workout Cooldown Mix?
I have very fond memories of Howards End: one of those so bad it’s totally brilliant bits of TV. I’d love to watch it again. I was in stitches first time round. The male cast members all seemed to be taking a break from advert voiceover work.
Howard’s End? Strangely highbrow freudian slip there G
I can hardly remember Howards Way, apart from it being utterly rubbish and being on before Kickstart if I remember correctly
There’s a caption contest a-begging for that photo, surely Susan? I thought of a couple including ‘your left hand’ and ‘Jonathon Green’ but as this is a family newspaper I knew they wouldn’t get past the Ed.
Not quite sure what you mean Mahlerman, but I bet Jonathon could come up with some curiously nautical words – like futtocks.