Henley Regatta Pics

[watson1959]

Knew it was going to be busy when we hit this queue at Shiplake (CLick on pics for larger views...couldnt figure that one out!)

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Should have used their side instead....lots more room

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Can someone who rows please explain what this chap's role is?

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Somewhat busier than I expected but a great opportunity to improve handling skills!

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[chief1]

the bloke in the white coat

Could say that he was there in his white coat to take any unfortunate moboer who loses his marbles because they can't cope with the narrow channels and all the other traffic, off to the lunatic asylum .........

but.....

in reality he is there to open the boom to allow the umpires launches off the racetrack. Their dock is just after the finish on the Berkshire side, and rather than making them go upstream and execute a u turn in the middle of all that traffic, they head off downstream and get out of the way of the upcoming race by going through the gap and joining all the other traffic, or at the weekend when the races are spaced further apart, they can go further down the course and get off it onto the Berkshire side where there is more 'off track' space. In 40 years I've never seen them get it wrong and force a race to stop.

Cheers

 

[watson1959]

Could say that he was there in his white coat to take any unfortunate moboer who loses his marbles because they can't cope with the narrow channels and all the other traffic, off to the lunatic asylum .........

but.....

in reality he is there to open the boom to allow the umpires launches off the racetrack. Their dock is just after the finish on the Berkshire side, and rather than making them go upstream and execute a u turn in the middle of all that traffic, they head off downstream and get out of the way of the upcoming race by going through the gap and joining all the other traffic, or at the weekend when the races are spaced further apart, they can go further down the course and get off it onto the Berkshire side where there is more 'off track' space. In 40 years I've never seen them get it wrong and force a race to stop.

Cheers

Perfect...thanks for the explanation....interesting. We went up and down a couple of times and he didnt seem to move!

I had rather imagined it was something along the lines of whacking the heads of anyone daring to eat a kebab off the front of the mobo with their sunburned brats screaming 'I wanna ice cream NOW!'.....

 

[chief1]

On the Sunday, with races 15 minutes apart, I shouldn't think he did move very often as the launches, and indeed crews heading down to the start, had plenty of time to get down to the gap on the Berkshire side and avoid mingling with the hoi polloi in the open channel!! It would have been a bit different on the Wednesday, with races 5 minutes apart and possibly three races on the track at once, he would have been opening and shutting the gap like a fiddlers elbow, to mangle my catch phrases! At least though the boaters channel wouldn't have been so busy.