For once the weather was kind, with a beautiful crisp sunny morning, with a gentle Northerly breeze. Four IRS yachts came to the start line, complete with hangovers from the previous night’s festivities, and were sent off on a sort of extended Town Course, with a brief foray into the Roach as far as Jubilee to provide a windward leg, and lots of reaching legs in front of the Club and the hardy spectators.

Duncan and Beccy Haley in Double Trouble were defending the trophy, but the scheduled 90 minutes for the race proved insufficient to overcome Assarain’s giant spinnaker, and at the finish Angus Bates and his crew of refugees from Titian were some 2½ minutes ahead on corrected time, getting the trophy back for the RBYC.

The final result was:

The Predicted Log for motor vessels was run, in the best tradition of this event, under the Chaos Theory rules with two entrants, one of which had no means of communication and, as far as the race management team were aware, no chart or pencil, and the other which tested the theory of the Race Officer’s discretion over late entries to the limit, sailing completely different courses in different parts of the river. In these circumstances it was decided to split the fleet into two divisions, and prizes were therefore awarded – based mainly on entertainment value – both to Ant Law in The Beach Hut, and Rupert Brown in Red Herring.