Thorn Race

The Thorn race followed on directly from the two rivers race with the finish of the one being the start of the second, with a handicapped self-timed finish at Mistley. Boats that would be late were encouraged to resign and motor to Mistley to get fed before the tide left us stuck there.

We expected to be in that group, but we weren’t far behind Janner and they were still sailing and it was so nice we couldn’t make ourselves stop. We said “we’ll stop by xxx o’clock” and then we were so close to the finish line that we carried on. There was so much water in the Stour that we could make really long tacks into the shallows of this beautiful river on a perfect day. Once past the finish line we banged the motor on and dropped sail – the channel was dead head to wind. A boat was aground on Swan Island with a rib and Swallowtail trying to pull her off. We thought about helping but decided that any boat assisting ought to be shallower draught than the boat aground,

Once ashore we discovered that the ‘hot buffet’ was to be plated and served in the Thorn and they hadn’t started. We were really pleased we hadn’t abandoned the race. We handed our declaration in, but the real beauty of the race was the sail itself.

The lunch was wonderful. The Thorn at Mistley is a fine place, professional and friendly. Great ale, great food and a great welcome. When Geoff from Swallowtail and the crew of the grounded boat finally came in after successfully rescuing her the staff made sure they were fed and watered and supplied with packed versions of any of the food they didn’t have time to eat, or were too stressed to enjoy.

Apparently, when the first boats arrived they found one of the fence panels had been removed. People from TWL soon turned up and put it back. I’m told they then welded it in place. According to the Article 4 Direction they need planning permission for each and every maintenance action they take on the fence, so this should be interesting.

Once the panel was in place, our committee put ladders either side of the fence so the rest of us could come ashore without touching it. TWL called the Police who immediately started asking questions and decided we were behaving perfectly correctly. More on this story here and here.