This the third major maritime festival to have been held in England was not on the DCA calendar, although I had intended to mention it in the Bulletin. As with the two previous events at Bristol in 1996 and Portsmouth in 1998, there was a reasonable DCA presence, so it deserves a mention here. Those present were:-

David Mon WW Potter Roamer Bob Lomas WW Potter Nancy Bruce Longstaff WW Potter Ursa Minor David Weinstock Tahiti Wayfarer Catamaran Roy Rolf 18ft Chantry Aidan de la Mare and Peter Glover 14ft Jady Lane

Also present was Charles Stock in Shoal Waters and two further WW Potters who may soon become members, and Dr Syn a Wayfarer which was very much a DCA type of live aboard boat. There was also a selection of Drascombes, one of which was owned by Sam Llewellyn, and other open and small cabin boats. All these were moored on pontoons in the Upper Camber in the southwest corner of the Festival site in the Naval Dockyard, which was an improvement over the previous event as we could get ashore at all states of tide and still have access to open water.

Needless to say we only provided a small part of the attraction to the visitors! There were also some 500 yachts, 29 tall ships, 30 working boats, 28 naval vessels and other shore attractions to entertain the 300,000 or so visitors. Indeed, as at the previous events, so large was the site and so much was there to see that even the four days were not enough to see all that was of interest and avoid complete exhaustion, particularly as three of the days were unusually hot, only Sunday having a long shower in the afternoon.

Several of the small boats availed themselves of the adjoining open water trying their luck at not being run down by the endless procession of yachts and motorboats parading up and down the harbour looking at us from outside. Having gone out, however, we found that getting back against the wind and tide was a bit problematic, made the more so by the frequent passage through the harbour of the enormous cross-channel ferries. But it did allow David Weinstock to experiment with his borrowed ethnic type catamaran which was to be seen sailing and paddling about the harbour — at night it grew a dome tent on the open platform between the hulls. Chanty and Jady Lane went off racing with a few others and came back with second and third prizes.

There is no doubt that it was a very large and diverse event and was generally well worth attending by boat. Although there were shortcomings both for us and the paying visitors, who had some delays getting in, I expect I will go to the next one in 2005. I encourage you to give it a try, either as a visitor, or by boat in which case it is free; but I must mention that entry is not guaranteed as the organizers do select the boats and I do not know their criteria for doing so. Aidan de la Mare