Maldon

Alice in charge

Today was racing for junior crews and lady helmspersons. We have no juniors aboard at present so we entered Alice in the ladies' category. This meant Alice was the only one allowed to steer the boat throughout the race. Of course some of the ladies have lots of experience sailing boats but Alice is definitely learning quickly. The race was to windward up the river Blackwater from Mersea to Osea island. Alice steered all the way but was assisted by generous amounts of advice from her crew.

Cygnet (built Burgoyne bros. Kingston on Thames 1906)

The formal race results are not yet available but it appeared that quite a lot of boats were ahead of us. Bonita's sails are not very new and she has quite a lot of extra gear aboard for the round Britain trip so we can't expect too much. However we did finish at exactly the same time as Cygnet, also based at Faversham. We thought we were slightly ahead, and they thought they were so there wasn't much in it. As Cygnet is both longer (12.2m) and newer than Bonita we were quite pleased.

Allan and Alice on Maldon Quay

In the evening we took taxis to Maldon for supper in the Little Ship Club. Alice had not been to Maldon before and Allan last came as a small boy for a previous Old Gaffers Race, so we enjoyed looking round this ancient and historic town. 

No blog is quite complete without an educational historical fact, and we were interested to learn that Maldon was the home of the Reverend Joseph Billio. His enthusiastic preaching style in the early 1800s gave rise to the phrase 'going like Billio'.