Trafalgar Day

WestwardBound

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Am I the only one who would be very proud to celebrate Trafalgar Day, but who is most unwilling to trade the May Bank Holiday for one in October ?

May is a good time to be getting ready for launch or taking advantage of the everybody else still being up on the hard if you have been in over the winter.

Or alternately getting something done in the Garden.

I won't object to an extra bank holiday but the bourgeois recidivists had better keep their hands off International Revolutionary Yachtsman's Day !
 

Leighb

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Our Club support Trafalgar Day by having a special lunch on the nearest Saturday, however I would also not be keen on the idea of a Bank Holiday on October, but there are too many in the Spring too close together, particularly when Easter is late.
 

OLLIE45

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Moving a bank holiday from a time when the weather is likely to be reasonable to a time when its likely to be grim is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion.

Disappointed about the decision on double summertime too.

I'm sure that the 'great and good' running the country on our behalf decide what's best........and then do exactly the opposite!!!!
 

Seajet

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I'll second that, 'D-Day' would be spot on in every way.

Not all of us have squalling brats - erm 'the gift of children', so could well do without moving the BH to July and schools out time when one needs a gatling gun to get into some harbours...
 

Seajet

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In 1988, after the previous October Hurricane had done its' bit, we arrived in Cherbourg to find we had to anchor in the middle of a harbour which had time-warped back a few decades.

In the morning a launch containing a few French came and politely asked if we could make way for the pile-driving barge - at which point my young chum who'd just joined the RAF ( destined to become a Nimrod pilot ) sprang up from below, at this 'First Contact'.

" At this point I'd just like to say a few words; Agincourt, Cressy, Waterloo, Trafalgar ! "

Our cause wasn't helped much by a huge Thunderbirds - style explosion in the Naval yard just as we were leaving ( always wondered what it was, people must have been hurt or killed ) resulting in an impressive ' scramble ' of various patrol boats which came and checked out all departing yachts, at which point I felt I could have done well without Julian in his military gear.

Still, if they can't take a joke ( in reality I'm a great admirer of the French )...sadly Trafalgar is poor timing re. hols, so D-Day does seem best bet, or why not both, we're plummeting towards a 3-day week already !
 

Sturgess

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Trafalgar day yes!

Let we Brits celebrate OUR maritime history - I'd trade a day of antifouling for this "greater good"..
 
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I reckon its a good idea to get rid of may day just like we got rid of the socialists who wanted this holiday for political reasons.

WE always celebrate Trafalgar day at the club and the toast is always " death to the French". :D Taken in remarkably good part by the French wife of one member.
 

monkfish24

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I've celebrated Traf Day nearly every year, I ensure that I drink a tot in honour of Nelson's men and refuse to call it "The Napoleonic Era" instead opting for "Nelsonian's Victourious Defeat of the French and Spanish becuase they are a bunch of surrendering, cheese eating striking blighters!" or just the Nelsonian Times" to kkep it brief! :D

Oh and Taranto night is celebrated by the Wafu's but being just a damned JR, I never get to celebrate :(
 

VO5

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Here the 21st October at noon is a very special event annually, and when I lived in England, the same.
As it happens I am a Nelson fan anyway.
I gather my friends in my home, some sailors and some not, for a toast in Navy Rum, followed by lunch.
I am the owner of the defeated admiral's drinking glasses, handed down in the family. Baccarat crystal. Each one is a note in the scale though I only have 11. We bring these out once a year for this event. We drink this toast in front of a famous original print of Nelson aboard the Victory which is in my drawing room in final discussions before the battle whilst the signals are being prepared on deck ready to hoist. I confess it gives me goose pimples just to tell you this.:D
 
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I am the owner of the defeated admiral's drinking glasses, handed down in the family. Baccarat crystal. Each one is a note in the scale though I only have 11. We bring these out once a year for this event. We drink this toast in front of a famous original print of Nelson aboard the Victory which is in my drawing room in final discussions before the battle whilst the signals are being prepared on deck ready to hoist. I confess it gives me goose pimples just to tell you this.:D

Cant match that. Ours is Pussers rum, but the glasses are likely from the petrol station some years back, we havent got a drawing room but just the club lounge and we have the drinks in front of the photo of the 1997 committee since we havent had a photo taken since then. And the evening will be suitably finished off with the battle of trafalgar chicken curry.

After all, but for Trafalgar, we might have had to eat canapes instead.:eek:
 

VO5

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Or snails or frogs legs, god forbid.:eek:

Here every year on the day we have the most beautiful and moving ceremony at the Trafalgar Cemetry where many from the battle are buried.
Very moving. You have to be fashioned in stone for it not to bring a lump to your throat. Usually it is dull - cloudy at that time of the year, but it goes on even in the pouring rain.
 

Humblebee

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I heard a politician on the radio today saying a Trafalgar Day BH would lengthen the tourist season. Can't see the French and Spanish latching on to that somehow.
 
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