Well, August sure seems a long time ago!
Whilst September brought us some gorgeous weather, October isn’t looking too promising so far!
Looking back at the fabulous rowing and sailing images, it is a reminder how lucky we were during Regatta week to have beautiful blue skies, fingers crossed 2022 will be the same.
Whilst some things were a little different, the core elements that make up our Regatta were a great success. We started with our Family Fun Day, then the brilliant Kon-Tiki Raft race followed by the Regatta Silent Disco. Rowing; local and West of England races went off without a hitch in sunshine and with plenty of competitive spirit. The whole town community and further afield took great delight being back on the water doing what they do best. The sailors had a great time too – although there was a slight lack of wind on a couple of days, the sunny weather more than made up for this. The road races, golf, bowls and darts all took place as usual too, with plenty of other land based music in the Royal Avenue Gardens, shopping and entertainment during the week for all of the family. Coronation Park held 3 events this year and included Magnificent Michael Buble – not the real Michael of course, but he and his talented band were superb to watch! Spot the Oddity was a great success with a record number of entries, and the Junior Crabbing Competition was a real delight and hard fought, with most competitiors using recycled or wooden lines as requested. Even though the crabs seemed to be a bit shy this year, we still had an awful lot to count and return to the river! This is a brief snapshot of Regatta week, it is fully packed with much, much more!
One competition which lasts until well after Regatta week, is our Regatta Photo Competition. This ended on the 30 September to give everyone a chance to send their photos into us. We really did have some fantastic entries, making it a very tricky choice for our panel of judges. However, we have reached a decision and are pleased to say the photo below was a unanimous choice for our 2021 winner. It not only sums up everything Regatta, it is of our own ‘Queen of Regatta’, Lynne Leader. Lynne is on the committee and works tirelessly selling tickets for events, feeding and assisting the Coronation Park team during the arena build, as well as being a key organiser in the Kon-Tiki Raft race, with special responsibility for raft safety. Lynne is always cheery, funny and a real tonic to be around, so when we saw this photo the panel felt it was an outright winner. Taken by Vanessa Luck, another Dartmouth local, we think it encapsulates all of the river activity during Regatta perfectly whilst showing that shoreside as a spectator and organiser, is also a splendid place to be.
So many congratulations to Vanessa! The winning prize of £50 was handed over by Stuart Millard, of Millards in Dartmouth, who kindly sponsored this competition. We felt it wouldn’t be right to not include Lynne in the prize giving, so here she is too with Vanessa and Stuart.
We do hope you enjoyed this years event if you attended! We would like to take the opportunity to thank all our generous sponsors, all of the many competitors, the lovely helpers and visitors and last but not least the amazing band of volunteers who make up our committee and who work year round to bring this event to the town.
Next years Regatta starts on Saturday 20 August with the official Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta taking place on the 24, 25, 26 and 27 August 2022. See you there!
