We enjoyed a great weekend at the festival this year – not so lovely weather-wise some of the time, but we had a lot of visitors at our tent, and many admirers of our gorgeous new boat!
On Saturday, we hosted the return of the Dinghy Rowing Races – due to the weather, the turnout was less than we had hoped, but the hot action of the 4 boats, and the enthusiastic crowd of spectators made up for it! Special thanks to Gerry Stensgaard for his officiating.
The races were not without some controversy though – a late change involved the doubling up of power on Ragna – with the expected result of trouncing the competition. Some thought it would be more fair if that boat had to make one round of the buoys for each person rowing, but with the foul weather, nobody wanted to wait around for the extra couple of minutes.
We ended up doing two regular races, changing out the rowers for the second race, and then had a third race with the rower blindfolded, and a seeing guide in the boat providing instructions. Some instructors were more successful than others, getting their directions through to the rower. The best surprise success was the 4-yr-old giving his Dad guidance – and coming in 2nd place!
But the winners of that race had a clear advantage of the oarsman having rowed many miles in the Vogler, and demonstrated that he can in fact row that boat with his eyes closed! The races were a lot of fun, and we hope to drum up more interest, more participants, and much better weather for next year!
One of our neighbours on display in the Market Square was this sweet handliner – a local boat, an excellent rower, suitable for English Bay waters, and carvel planked – perhaps Oarlock & Sail’s next new build? We shall see.
Huge thanks to Georgina for her work in rallying the troops and leading the team in organizing everything – we love to participate in the festival, and it’s always a challenge fitting in time near the end of summer, but we had a great time!
Oarlock and Sail Wooden Boat Club 