Racing sailing craft – Page 107

It’s that time of year again – the time when each year I stare at the pages of the Watertribe website, trying vainly to work out the meaning of the results from the Everglades Challenge, and to try to identify the entrants’ boats.

My family really has no idea why I do this, but I can explain it – it’s simply that a 300-mile race involving an assortment of kayaks and small sailing boats along the Florida coast seems to me to be a hugely challenging event. The fact that most of the entrants seem to be in middle age or beyond only adds to my admiration. These are people like me! And the winners arrive at the finish in just a few days or fewer – this year, the winners were sailing a Tornado catamaran (corrected thanks to Jamie’s comment below) and completed their run in less than two days.

Generally, I get the impression that the whole thing has become more professionalised, with lots of moulded plastic expedition boats, and so is less quaint than it has been in years gone by. Still, the lads who came second were sailing a plywood vee-bottomed sharpie-derived ketch that most home builders would have not trouble constructing for themselves, and the fourth home was the always astonishing Matt Layden in his self-designed and self-built 8ft pram dinghy with a lid, Sand Flea.

The positive side of the growing professionalism, I suspect, is that the entrants are taking greater care over their safety each year, which must be a good thing with so many small, vulnerable boats strung out along the Florida coastline.

But the rabbit punch is that some of these people will be going on to attempt the Ultimate Florida Challenge, a circumnavigation of Florida involving a portage across the northern part of the state.

So here are the relevant web links:

The Watertribe website.

Videos of the event hosted at YouTube.

A picture gallery by someone called JC.

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Smell the Sea, Feel the Breeze exhibition of paintings at Falmouth gallery

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Running for Home by Charles Napier Hemy, one of the paintings
at the Feel the Breeze exhibition. Click for full-size image

The same painting at 1600, 1280 and 1024 pixels across – choose a size for your desktop!

Mike Haywood’s Barnabbas, St Ives fishing boat; and Jamie Medline’s Pandora, will also be on show

This impressive and exciting painting by Charles Napier Hemy RA will be a key exhibit at the Smell The Sea, Feel The Breeze show at Falmouth Art Gallery next month. Certainly I can smell the sea and feel the breeze here, but just look at that sheet – it’s hardly more than inches from gybing in water rough enough to push the little boat around. I hope they get home.

The exhibition aims to capture the variety of water, wind and waves from dramatic sailing adventures in wild waters to paddling in rock pools with Rupert Bear, and is being made possible by the generous sponsorship of TMS Financial Solutions, and Arts & Business South West which funded the additional insurance and the transporting of valuable works by distinguished Cornwall artists such as Henry Scott Tuke RA, Charles Napier Hemy RA, William Ayerst Ingram, Frank Jameson, Mike Haywood and David Hills.

Important loans from the Royal Society of Marine Artists Diploma Collection have been made available through the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Work by one of Britain’s greatest abstract painters, Sir Terry Frost, is also being made available through private collections. Sir Terry’s career spanned seven decades, starting with his introduction to art in a prisoner-of-war camp. The featured works drew inspiration in Cornwall from sailing boats bobbing on the tide.

Also showing will be original works by contemporary Falmouth artist Jamie Medlin. Jamie is one of the country’s leading marine artists and is known widely through his prints. He currently paints beautiful classic yachts, and some of the best of these paintings have been borrowed for this exhibition. His art was included in the recent Christie’s sale of Important Maritime Paintings.

Falmouth has a long and proud association with sailing. The packet ships, ocean-going clippers and the coastal trading sailing vessels have long ceased their trade, but Falmouth can still attract major sailing events, from the famous Regatta to the arrival of ‘round the world’ yachtsmen.

The exhibition is mounted to celebrate and promote the Funchal 500 Tall Ships Race, which will be held in September 2008.

A full programme of gallery events has been designed to complement the exhibition, which will include free workshops for babies, children, families, schools and community groups. A full colour brochure sponsored by TMS Financial Solutions will be available priced £4.50.

The exhibition can be seen at Falmouth Art Gallery from 1 March to 26 April 2008, Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm. Admission is free. For more information about activities and education please contact Natalie Rigby on 01326 313863.

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