Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Dylan Winter films the Three Rivers Race, Norfolk Broads, Part 1

Dylan Winter, who I rank as the best sailing/cruising videographer going on the Internet, has put some video shorts up of this years Three Rivers Race held on the Norfolk Broads, England, the first weekend in June.

From the Thames Sailing Club website , quoted here is a description of the race......

The ..........Three Rivers Race, is organised by Horning Sailing Club....... It is a unique and taxing event which is probably the most unusual yacht race in the UK.

Taking place over a 24-hour period, the Three Rivers Race is a handicap event with entries ranging from dinghies, half-deckers, traditional Broads yachts and modern production yachts......who paddled or quanted under bridges and short tacked up narrow rivers.

The course is about 50 miles in length set around three of the rivers of the Norfolk Broads, the Bure, the Ant and the Thurne, and includes four turning points which may be taken in any order. As the rivers are tidal a great deal of tactical planning is required from skippers and crews to choose the most efficient method of getting round all the turning marks as quickly as possible.

Dylan Winters most likely will combine these video shorts into something grander. I think he is trying to make a buck off his Internet videos (as the English say, Jolly Good..... as he is, after all a professional, and his quality is always superb). These links may eventually disappear as Dylan takes them down from YouTube. Enjoy for the moment.......

The first one shows the pre-start prep and the start of the gunter Rebel class. One can catch the occasional glimpse of some of the unique gaffer river cruisers anchored about. The starting commentator is a nice touch......



Sorry, video has been removed!




And the start of the Thames A-Raters, probably the most refined light air, small water sailboat in the world. Normally raced on the upper reaches of the Thames; it looks like a fair number of the A-raters made the trip up north to race on the Norfolk Broads. If memory serves, the hulls all date back to the early 1900's and now sport enormously tall carbon rigs with fully battened mylar sails. What looks like a stool fastened to the back deck is actually there to support the mast when the rig is dropped to fit under one of many bridges in this race.



Sorry, video has been removed!




More to come.......

Tip of the hat to Dylan.........

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