RTIR 1956

[Moonshining]

I don't know if this has been posted before but, this brilliant little British Transport Films film appeared in the Youtube sidebar when I was looking at ash2020's missing rudder adventures.

Life on the IoW in 1956 with Uffa Fox in the RTIR and a second section with Cowes week. Interspersed with cows, meadows and thatched cottages.

http://youtu.be/6AQ8MuMro8c

 

[Pinnacle]

FAB!

 

[josephmoore]

Fantastic little film and some lovely boats

 

[l'escargot]

I love this description of the night before the RTIR in 1939 by Adlard Coles:

"It was on June 24th, 1939 that I joined Josephine II at Cowes to participate in the " Round the Island Race." This ever-popular event combines both the attractions of a cruise and the excitement of a race, for it takes a yacht right round the Isle of Wight, a distance of fifty-five sea miles. No wonder that it brings together the greatest assembly of yachts for any single event on the coast of the British Isles. During the day before the race, Cowes roads and anchorage present a remarkable picture. All day long yachts enter the harbour, many of them small husky cruisers, some of them fast light racers and not a few from the Royal Ocean Racing Club classes, including such well-known and comparatively large ships as Blue Peter, Evenlode and Erivale. Humble yachts and expensive yachts, large yachts and small, fast and slow compete in the one great race, and all stand a chance of a prize; the handicappers see to that. Nearly eighty yachts cross the starting line, providing perhaps the finest yachting spectacle of the year

It is the Island Sailing Club which gives the Round the Island Race, and the club house on the west side of the Medina is a busy scene all day long and to a late hour at night. Race officers are pestered for fixture cards and on the hundred and one questions about the handicaps and the course which should answer themselves, if owners would but read the cards and the notices on the club board. The life of a ticket collector at a terminus on a Bank Holiday is restful compared with that of a club official on the eve of the Round the Island Race. But it is all great fun really and as the evening draws on the club gets fuller and fuller. Foregathering together are hard bitten R.O.R.C. men, racing men and cruising men hard or soft, but all equally determined to contest the race on the morrow to the utmost. Women are there too, as owners and crews, and as wives, sweethearts and daughters. The representatives of the fair sex always take a great part in this kind of race.

It is when night falls that the club is at its best. Glasses tinkle cheerfully as one thrusts or crawls one's way to the bar through the mass of people. There is a buzz of talk, sailing shop mostly, for this is a great time for meeting sailing acquaintances. The doors to the balcony are open, and outside one looks down and across the harbour, the blackness interspersed with the pinheads of lights from the anchored yachts. On the balcony itself it is quiet, but for the distant drone of conversation in the smoking room and the crisp splash of the harbour waves against the sea wall.

But soon the club will empty, for an early start is to be made on the morrow. There will be a great business with dinghies; painters being found and untangled in the dark; the lights of hurricane lamps as the occupants get into the boats, and the creak of oars as they row off across the harbour to the deserted yachts..."

"...the greatest assembly of yachts for any single event on the coast of the British Isles..." & "...Nearly eighty yachts cross the starting line..."

 

[Sans Bateau]

What a gem of a film! I was surprised though with the chap at the end of the film, just before the fireworks. I thought he was selling jonnies, but it was balloons!