Firstly, the answer to the pub quiz question was Tokyo – did you get it? The anagram is Kyoto in case you're having problems!!!

This was the last day of the regatta and the climax of the whole event was to be a dinner on board the Passat . Prior to that we had a free day and most of us chose to spend some of the time on board the Passat to look around and to listen to the Passat choir, who were performing their sea shanty repertoire periodically during the day and very good they were too. Prior to that many of us opted to have some of our more removable items permanently inscribed by the police – again another great idea organised by you know who, at least you should do by now! It was extremely hot and poor Peter Wilde almost caught sunstroke, acting in his capacity as umbrella holder to keep the sun off the policeman who was doing the etching. It got even hotter during the day, we recorded 35°C and the humidity was high too, so as is typical of the Brits, we were soon complaining about the weather!

There was a bit of a low point during the day, in that Julie and I had our first spat of the cruise and it was over the poem that we had produced to read out that evening. Each boat was asked if they were prepared to do something towards the evening’s entertainment and ours was a poem loosely based upon John Masefield’s 'Sea Fever’ – the one that goes ‘I must go down to the sea again’ . Anyway, Julie as the poet in residence had produced the majority of the verses and I’m afraid I had the temerity to suggest some alternative lines and moreover, that one or two verses should be left out. Now those of you that know Julie will recognise that that was a brave, or foolhardy, thing to do….

Peace finally came back to the boat and I can report that the poem went down quite well. Before I describe the evening I will expend a few lines on the Passat. Passat is a German four-masted steel barque and one of the Flying p-Liners, the famous sailing ships of the German shipping company F Laeisz. The name "Passat" means ‘trade wind’ in German. She is one of the last surviving windjammers, of course the Pommern in Mariehamn which we saw on the Ålands, is another. Here is a Wikipedia link if you want to see more :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passat_%28ship%29

At 18:30, we were dressed in our finery, or at least the best that we had on board and were soon enjoying the wine and beer that was available, included in the price, throughout the evening . Dinner, of three courses, was very good indeed. In fact, all of the CW contingent opted for two helpings of the delicious cold buffet rather than get even hotter by eating the hot courses. After dinner, the evening’s entertainment was kicked off and indeed compered by our very talented president, Stuart Bradley who sang a couple of amusing songs, with his guitar as accompaniment. He then invited the various teams to give their renditions and many and varied they were. For me, by far and away the best came from ‘Victrix’. Pat Cooper & Christine Holroyd were absolutely wonderful; they sang their version of A.A. Milne’s ‘Buckingham Palace’ and the very clever bit was the way that they managed to mention every boat in the Rally, it really was good. So they take the high ground but I like to think that we were at least on the lower slopes, here is one verse and don’t forget it is plagiarised from ‘Sea Fever’ :-


We must go down to the laundrette again, for the smell of the dirty pants

Is a strong smell and a wild smell that we cannot countenance

And all that we ask is a washing machine that doesn’t take too long

Sod energy ratings and green credentials, we just want rid of the pong!




To explain, washing machines are hard to find at times and when you do succeed, there may be a queue and moreover, some of the ‘green’ ones take as long as 2 hours 40 minutes for a wash.

It was a great evening and a fitting end to a very very successful Rally. Well done Janet & Horst and well done the Cruising Association, what a fabulous sailing club.