For some people, four years is often enough for a cup competition. The anticipation. The training. The team selection. The speculation over the manager. The tactics. The first stage matches. The second round defeat. And then it’s all over till next time.
But those who take part in the Fairplay Cup, rather than the football World Cup, run the gamut of these events and emotions every year.
Like the World Cup, it is at the opening ceremony when competitors are seen for the first time as teams rather than individuals, creating a single entity that shares, just for this competition, a common goal. At other times they might be colleagues or they might be competitors. And, just as some World Cup managers surprised onlookers by choosing little-known names with no real experience of top-level events, so the Fairplay Cup produces a combination of old and new, of experience and enthusiasm, of the baffling and the baffled.
Fairplay Cup opening ceremonies are now a routine: on the evening before the competition begins, all competitors are invited to a reception and briefing. For some, it is an intimidating experience.
Take, for example, the crew of Fairplay’s own entry into the race, the latest to bear the traditional ‘Press Gang’ flag into the arena. “We were a little intimidated by the presence of some very capable looking teams,” recalls the team’s log-keeper. “Maybe it was the obviously weathered and matching sailing gear, the well worn boat shoes and waterproof bags. Maybe it was the general swarthiness, broad shoulderedness, and seriousness of our chin stroking, teeth-sucking, companions that made the prospect of a win seem a foolish dream.”
Others believe that dream can be made less foolish by practising, much in the way that the English football team practises penalties. This year, it was one of Trinity House’s entries – Buoy Racers – that thought it could outsmart its rivals by booking an identical boat to the one they would be sailing in the event and taking it out the day before.
As its report pointed out, the plan was to make all its mistakes before the big day. “It worked”, its log exclaimed. “During the practice day we managed to get our spinnaker tangled 10 times and have problems with the engine.” It was never made clear what was meant by a reference in its report to “that incident that is too embarrassing to mention,” but David Beckham, England’s captain, who showed the watching world what he had had for lunch during one World Cup game, surely knows what embarrassment feels like.
Which team turns up?
The Buoy Racers meant business, as their colleagues on Trinity House’s other boat, As Good Asset Gets, knew. “Every year,” its report observed sagely, “Trinity House Lighthouse Service enters a team that is put together to maintain a presence in the race, to promote Trinity’s formidable presence in all matters nautical.”
But “that wasn’t us. We were ‘the other guys’”, they believed. “Where the Buoy Racers were held together by a love of yachting and a firm grasp of the principles, strategies and wisdom that make up a race winning team, we were held together by enthusiasm and just enough experience to give us an optimistic edge.”
Fairplay’s managing editor knows about teams with ‘just enough experience’. He had drawn Iran in the office World Cup sweepstake and, despite the country’s good showing in the qualifying games, his investment was short-lived once the team reached Germany.
One of Holman Fenwick and Willan’s crew, whose team name invited everyone to ‘Show Us Your Writs’, seemed unsure about his colleagues’ abilities. As one of the crew earnestly keyed buoy coordinates into his satnav, Fairplay’s man with the notebook asked whether the boat had an experienced crew. “Yes,” was the assured reply. “But not on the water.”
V.Ships’ boat is never short of experience and its regular name – One Team, One Goal – tells all there is to know about its approach to the big match. But would one goal be enough this year? This year its crew included a newcomer to the company who had more modest aims; her goal was not to fall in. “If I get to lunchtime without getting wet, I might raise the bar.” Some of the penalty kicking in the football sideshow would have benefited from raising the bar at half time.
Another crew with an eye on experience is ABB’s Exotic Application team. Last year, they propped up the results table but this year “we’ve got some experience on board” said one crewmember, in the form of some customers who are actually boat owners. But, as everyone knows from their youth, the kid who owns the ball will certainly be picked for the team but that brings no guarantee of scoring ability.
Last year’s winner, London Offshore Consultants, shares this realistic view. Its LOC Stock and Barrel team members all had some sailing experience, but they knew that retaining the trophy would be an added bonus. “From the outset the crew were determined to have an enjoyable day out,” its summary of the day admits.
Less realistic was Lloyd’s Register’s Starlight Express team. If there were a prize for prose – and why not? There are prizes for everything else – then it would go to Paul Seller, whose account of the team’s ambitions, as they gathered for the opening ceremony merits a wider audience: “The well-oiled machine swung into action; capstans turned like turbines, the head sail disappeared like a magician’s handkerchief and the spinnaker appeared like the petals on a rose in time lapse photography. With the balletic co-ordination of the Khirov performing Swan Lake, the team revelled in the ease with which they gracefully scythed through the opposition to claim another victory to add to their swollen trophy chest.” It was, unfortunately, just another performance in the theatre of dreams.
With the opening ceremony over, team managers have a final opportunity to encourage their stars to excel in the match of their lives. Crews drift off to restaurants and bars where they can rehearse their strategies in privacy.
Fairplay’s two crews and that of its associated company AIS Live had billeted themselves in a hotel where no other teams were staying to minimise the risk of rivals spiking their carefully-planned diet. And the evening’s meal was eaten al fresco, in case the briefing room was bugged.
Dorchester Maritime’s enigmatically named team – Ellen G, Douglas and Doha – was not so lucky. In hindsight, they felt they should have kept their voices down as they evaluated the opposition and worked out a library of tactics “to ensure we finished ahead of V.Ships, long term rivals and the only other obvious shipping company in the contest”: at the next table was the V.Ships crew.
They do things differently in Finland. Hoping for a Strong Finnish to match his team’s name, Wärtsilä director Sten-Erik Haggman motivated his crew by narrating the story of Jason and the Argonauts, in which Jason set out to retrieve the Golden Fleece on his ship Argo, overcoming monsters and hostile kings to secure not only the fleece but also the daughter of the king of Colchis, where the fleece was guarded by a dragon. “We measure ourselves against the Argonauts,” intoned Sten-Erik, who hoped the tale would inspire his multi-national team to follow the example of those intrepid men. One of those modern-day Argonauts was not impressed. “It inspired him, anyway,” was his wry remark.
Match day
The next day was bright and warm with a light breeze as the referee, Rob Tattersall, called the team captains together for a pre-match briefing. It was not encouraging. The yachts’ radios may be inaudible in the cockpit, anyone departing from the channel past Portsmouth Dockyard risked a £5,000 fine or three months in prison, an accident on one of the boats earlier in the year left a guest in a coma for three months after being hit by a mainsheet block during a gybe. So gybe carefully.
Then there was the list of marker buoys supplied in the ships’ papers: it was incorrect. This one is out of position. That one is simply not there. Another has a different name from that shown. At least the wind – a useful-sounding NE4-5 – was good news. Well, not entirely: it was forecast to become variable, mainly west, as the day went on.
The racing area – we’ll call it the stadium – was defined and the kick-off for the first race set: 1100. It is easy to underestimate the time taken to exit Portsmouth Harbour against a flooding tide, especially when the start line has been set up across the other side of the Solent.
But the distance gave team managers and captains time for some final warm-up exercises. Take the crew of Starlight Express, for example, whose log-keeper was impressed with their appointed skipper, Mick. “It was at the point in Mick’s pre-launch briefing where we once again asked him to explain what a boat was that he rethought his strategic goal of first or second place,” the team’s report recalls.
“We spent the next 20 minutes persuading Mick that we could be trusted to operate a device as rudimentary as a spinnaker. By the first race, although still generally incompetent, we seemed to be doing the things Mick wanted us to do, albeit five minutes later than requested.”
Fairplay’s Press Gang team also had new words to learn. Their Sunsail skipper, Mike, confessed to having a competitive personality and warned of his likely use of profanities “although nothing could have prepared us for how this would manifest itself”, its report of the day says.
“We gripped our ropes hard,” the notes continue, “hoping that would somehow makeup for the fact that we didn’t really know what they were called. It didn’t matter once we were under way, because every rope became ‘that one’ or the ‘****ing blue and white one’.” It may not be recognised as sound management practice, but it achieved impressive results and the Japanese guest in the crew was able to return home with a broader vocabulary.
Pacific Basin used the passage to the starting area to review various strategies and practice important manoeuvres, such as a spinnaker hoist, a gybe and “the usual ‘baseball-cap-lost-in-a-spinnaker-tussle overboard’ routine,” its log states.
Dorchester Maritime also used the time to practice their technique. The spinnaker went up, it gybed, it came down. Then they looked around and realised that the start line was a long way away and uptide. The spinnaker went up again, the engine went on and they somehow got to the starting area with five minutes to spare. “Perfect”, was skipper Kuba Szymanski’s self-assured comment.
They were not the only ones to use their engine to reach the stadium. On Stephenson’s Rocket III, perhaps because it was named after an artificially-powered machine, “our chief engineer’s inability to turn off the engine during the five-minute countdown to the start did wonders for concentration in the cockpit,” their log says. “This was a stunning reversal of the usual role of the chief engineer who, in our seagoing experience, could usually be relied upon not to be able to start the engine at critical moments.”
They were not the only ones to cut it fine and when it became obvious that not all the players would be on the pitch by 1100, the referee delayed kick-off by ten minutes.
Kick off
He had set an unusual start line. Or rather, with the wind shifting, it was becoming increasingly biased. At first sight, the chance to sail across the line on a close reach seems an easy option, but it makes timing difficult to judge. Then put a flood tide under the keel and what happened next became inevitable.
Turning again to Dorchester Maritime’s recollections: “We went for the buoy end with the tide racing under us along with everybody else who all had the same plan. Thirty seconds to go and we passed the buoy. So did everyone else.”
Well, not quite everyone else but the view from the sidelines was obliterated well before the whistle was blown. In fact, one boat appeared to realise it was over the line and promptly turned round, heading back into the charging forward line as if it were playing Rugby football rather than soccer.
Oddly, in the post-race reports offered for scrutiny, few admit to being in anything other than a perfect position for the start. London Offshore Consultants, for example, spoke of their “perfect first start, only to be recalled.” Wärtsilä, too, boasted of its brilliant first start, “marred by the recall due to all those undisciplined boats shouting a lot at each other as they jumped the line.”
So the match was restarted and a five-minute alert sounded. Oh dear. ABB misheard and thought they had a full ten-minute count-down. “I wondered why everyone seemed to stay near the buoy,” confessed its account of the day, “unlike us who went off in the opposite direction thinking we were timing it perfectly.” So it was with much horror that they heard the one-minute hooter, “so everyone else had at least a four-minute start on us.”
From the press boat, the second start looked dodgy, too, with two boats seeming to be over the line. But, when positioned slightly ahead of the start to get a view across the fleet, alignments are difficult to judge and the referee did not blow for offside this time.
But the spectators were not the only ones who thought the start was suspect. The Pacific Basin crew made what they felt was a proficient start but “just after we crossed the line, confusion over whether there was a second general recall meant that we sailed in the opposite direction for a short time, just to make sure we were not in the way.” As a result, Pac Basin started last.
The course was essentially triangular, doubling back for the final leg to the finish. And when the committee boat set its position, the NE wind made the first leg an obvious tack. By the time the race got under way, the wind had become more easterly, making the leg possible, for those that realised it, as a single close-hauled starboard beat.
Dorchester later claimed to have had a cunning starting plan: “we would strike out for either the right or left corner on each first beat.” In the event, the plan “was all wasted. We sailed hard on starboard tack all the way to the mark. In fact we had to ease off a little approaching the mark” and their rival ship manager V.Ships was below them. “In some ways we followed the plan,” they later said. “We effectively went to the right hand corner but not the way we expected; there was no corner.”
Very poor heading
Probably no one had planned for a course like that. In football terms, there was no tackling as the leading boats headed straight for their marker. As a watching commentator might have said, “very poor heading.”
Dorchester had been second over the start line, behind Bluewater, which won a trophy for its achievement. Yet it was Fairplay’s Press Gang that joined Dorchester to make a pair of forward strikers on that first leg, leaving Bluewater to wonder what had gone wrong. “For some reason, the boat was slower than the others when trying to sail too close to the wind,” they decided.
Certainly something was odd: over the length of the windward leg, they fell back from first to 18th and then recovered to seventh at the end of the spinnaker run.
So it was Dorchester that reached the mark first and made an impressive spinnaker hoist, followed by the Press Gang. Trinity House’s Buoy Racers and LR’s Sailing Life Matters crews were next round with Holman Fenwick & Willan just getting the better of Castrol at the turn. Last to reach the mark were Pacific Basin, Stephenson Harwood and Michael Else & Co.
By now the players were well spread across the pitch. A forward row of four had become established, with Fairplay’s Press Gang, Trinity House’s Buoy Racers, LR’s Sailing Life Matters and Dorchester Maritime establishing a solid lead over the rest. As Trinity House’s notes comment, “all the mistakes made during the previous day were obviously paying off. Boats went low and lost wind we stayed high and moved up to second at next mark, hot on the heels of Press Gang. We were in contention for the lead.”
Their colleagues on As Good Asset Gets were having a less successful time. “Our skipper showed a satisfying head for strategy and we set a tactical course, challenging any other boats that infringed on our performance,” they admitted later. “The rumour that we visited all of the lighthouses in the English Channel is unfounded.”
Meanwhile, disaster struck for Sailing Life Matters. “We hit a wind pocket that inexplicably only affected us,” was its explanation. “Boats passed us on the inside close in to shore and outside in a clear stream of air.” They could only “sit and watch every single boat in the fleet approach astern and overtake us, leaving us in their wake. Some even commented that they thought that we must have run aground.” By the end of the run, they had slipped from fourth to 19th position.
Dorchester faced the same problem but said “the wind gods turned against us. The wind dropped to less and less as the sea breeze pushed against the prevailing breeze.” they could only watch as Trinity House and Fairplay “closed in relentlessly, one on each quarter, and kept on coming in their own private breezes. We tried everything but the other two boats sailed serenely past us one on each side as we wallowed in zero wind.”
Sixth at the first mark and in contention was Castrol, confident that “once the spinnaker was raised, we would pull away with ease.” Unfortunately, “we soon discovered the spinnaker halyard to be clewless and, in the time taken to correct the problem, the wind had dropped.” So had its position in the fleet – to 17th at the second mark.
But they got to know the marks well: “we seemed also to spend an inordinate length of time at each buoy chastising other skippers and explaining their actions and manoeuvres were not cricket,” they said. “This however appeared to fall on deaf ears as they sailed on into the distance.”
Strong in mid-field
Fairplay Solutions, in Prime Mover, was not exactly in its prime. From a mid-field 10th at the first mark, it slipped as the race went on, reaching the second mark in 14th place and continuing to slide, eventually finishing 16th and laying a foundation for its eventual last place.
As one guest commented later, the various buoys with unusual names such as ‘Gleeds’, ‘Bob Kemp’ and ‘Vail Williams’, “which a few hours before were unknown, became friends and acquaintances as we rounded them at heady speeds of up to two knots.”
While some were losing ground, others were making it up. Michael Else, for example, had gained six places downwind and the North of England an impressive 10, to reach the second mark in fourth place, the position it held till the end. Pacific Basin improved from 19th to 10th and ABB climbed from 16th to ninth and was rightly proud of its achievement. As its log commented, “coming from behind you can see where other yachts are struggling and it’s a great feeling going past them.”
Total LubMarine also made progress through the race, improving from 13th at the first mark to eventually finish sixth, making most of its progress during the closing stages.
Living up to its name, however, was AIS Live, in Where The AIS Are We? which fell from 15th to 20th, even with the wind behind it.
By the end of the spinnaker run, Fairplay’s Press Gang is leading with Trinity House close behind. A full six minutes passes before the next boat, Dorchester, leads a group of three past the same point, making a gap of perhaps a third of a mile. As the press boat waits by the buoy to count the other boats past, the leaders have become specks on the horizon; 12 minutes now separates first and last positions and it needed full power on the photographers’ RIB to catch them up at the next mark.
Again, Press Gang and Buoy Racers are in contention, but the wind has now fallen away to nearly nothing. Without the sound of wind and wave to drown them, sounds travel well across water and this observer’s notebook records that shouting could be heard from the Fairplay boat as it made the mark and contrasted the volume with the more serene atmosphere that appeared to prevail on its pursuer.
Goal-mouth fumble
Buoy Racers estimated later that they rounded the mark about 20 seconds behind Press Gang; their practice from the day before was paying off and they were ready to score. It was not to be. “All of those mistakes we made yesterday came back to haunt us,” they said later. The spinnaker wine-glassed, they tried to untwist it and eventually dropped it and re-hoisted it. As they fumbled in front of the goal, “we all watched Fairplay sail off into the distance with a sinking feeling knowing that this mistake could have cost us a win.” Fortunately, with such a large gap between them and third place, it did not cost them any places in the race.
By now, though, the wind had virtually dropped and the tide had turned, so any boats not at the mark now had the tide against them as well as the failing wind, so even short gaps became large time differences. The Buoy Racers’ 20 seconds at the last mark had become 10.5 minutes at the finishing line with Dorchester Maritime arriving 4.5 minutes later in third place and North of England another six minutes later in fourth and V.Ships a minute behind them in fifth.
The other Trinity House boat and Holman Fenwick & Willan managed a final duel for sixth and seventh and then the rest of the fleet drifted home, the last crossing the line 35 minutes after the first.
For those aboard Press Gang, it was a good first half, giving them a 1-0 lead at the interval.
Still everything to play forAt least, that may be the explanation. It was also much closer to the homeward journey back through Portsmouth harbour and to a television, where England’s footballers would later be displaying their skills in their World Cup game against Trinidad and Tobago.
Lunch was taken on the run and the second half was set to start at 1435. But first, the press boat provided a vital service to Stephenson Harwood’s crew. Until then, their navigator, a former seafarer, had come in for a lot of flak for his inability to recognise any of the racing marks named when the first course was announced from the list that had been handed out at the skipper’s briefing. They consoled themselves with the thought that, “from that point of view it was probably a good thing that we were able to follow some boats around the first course.”
Now they realised the truth: they had the wrong list altogether so the spectators’ RIB transferred a spare copy from the committee boat.
The course this time would be two sausages, one long and one short, finishing just outside Portsmouth Harbour. It was still a heavily biased line, according to some who checked, but at least some tacking would be required.
The crew of Onboard-Napa’s Napa Festina Lente felt that their boat was heavily biased as well, saying that evening that they measured a speed difference of 0.7kt between its port and starboard tack performance.
Offside again
So it is not surprising that those boats that offered comments on their performance said, for example, “we started the second race with a blinder. We had clean air and we were flying,” as the Buoy Racers put it. And Pacific Basin were equally proud of their start, having “once again found ourselves on the start line at the right moment.”
Needless to say, many others were not so precise and another general recall prompted the referee to ask players to keep clear of the line at the start. It was, felt the crew on Dorchester Maritime’s boat, a bizarre comment and its skipper offered his “cogent analysis” of the request, the boat’s log writer reported. “What planet is he on?” and “this is a race; we start at the line” were the sentiments that were expressed, “or words a bit like that,” the boat’s report said. They were probably not like that at all.
And, having taken the trouble to set itself up for “the perfect start,” Dorchester’s crew was going to defend it. As they accelerated towards the pin end of the start line, another boat “attempted to barge in. A chorus of polite requests from us not to do that wasn’t heeded but a gentle nudge plus an indication that a protest was imminent produced the desired result.”
That other boat was ABB’s. “Not like driving then, when you take the inside” said ABB crew member Sophie Madeley. So they went round the buoy and re-started, again chasing the pack. From the press boat it looked as though they had been first across the line – although Wärtsilä would beg to differ – but they were now last.
The Buoy Racers were disappointed with their re-start, finding themselves about 30 seconds short of the line when the hooter sounded. But they still paced themselves against Fairplay’s Press Gang, but “it seemed they had done something to their boat and they effortlessly pulled away from us on the same tack. We tried everything; alas, to no avail.”
Wärtsilä was proud of its starting tactics, “mixing it a bit” with the mêlée of boats before accelerating along the line and turning with 15 seconds to go. Pacific Basin, on the other hand, was disappointed with its attempt. After a perfect set-up before the recall, the crew spent time tightening the jib halyard before the re-start and were late arriving at the line. “The rest of the fleet was half way to the first mark,” they reckoned.
Bluewater’s crew were too busy to take in the details of what was going on around them but its log-taker was “amazed that no contact was made” in the close quarters sailing. “I suppose the screaming and shouting did have a purpose after all.”
With a few boats switching to port tack – although some quickly tacked back to starboard – leaders were difficult to distinguish for much of the windward leg. Wärtsilä was clearly doing well as too was Dorchester, which was first at the mark, with the Press Gang closing in on port tack.
The leading boats were generally the same group as had dominated the first race, but others were making more of a showing this time. Last year’s winner, London Offshore Consultants, arrived at the mark in sixth place, up from ninth at the same time in the first race, while Bluewater arrived ninth, rather better than 18th at the first mark in the morning.
Wärtsilä’s good start gave it “a wonderful view of all those beautiful spinnakers” once it had passed the first mark, “but from the front they looked even better,” its race report suggested.
At the other end of the fleet, Pacific Basin’s woes continued. Having started to make progress on the upwind leg, having to repair a broken downhaul on its spinnaker pole undid all its hard work. “We did indeed enjoy a lot of clear air during the back end of this race,” they commented philosophically. “So much so that we had time to grab a lost baseball cap.”
By the end of the downwind leg, Press Gang has again resumed the lead, but the press reporter’s notebook records that they seemed to be having difficulty detaching the spinnaker pole. It was not the only problem – “moments of hilarious disaster”, the boat’s log keeper called them – they faced as they dropped the pole, twisted the spinnaker, unclipped the wrong ropes and fell around the boat.
The hairdryer
Their Sunsail skipper’s “evident and justifiable frustration made us a little more tolerant of the language it was delivered in – a mix of foul mouthed expletives and prolific apologies, like a lads’ night out, meets Vicar’s tea party,” its log reports. One crew member was heard to mutter that some people paid good money “to be whipped with ropes, smacked around the head and have abuse hurled at them, and here I am getting it for nothing.” Their skipper’s style seems to match Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson, known for his heated outbursts, known as ‘hairdryers’.
It was a closer race than the first. Dorchester Maritime realised as they passed the windward mark for the second time that they were in fifth place. With a third place in their pocket, this would not be enough to beat V.Ships, which already held a fifth and were at that point lying second. They needed to find another place to match that and eventually just sneaked past Wärtsilä in the closing seconds to finish in fourth.
But V.Ships is always a team to reckon with, having won the cup in the past and consistently doing well in every race. They paced themselves against last year’s winner, London Offshore Consultants, “but on completion of the first race knew who to pace for the second,” their log records. They even explored conspiracy theories that might lie behind a Fairplay boat coming first, “but having raced them closely to a second place in the final race, we could only admit they deserved the win.” It was a generous remark, but backed with a warning: “Next year we’ll watch this one more closely.”
The two Lloyd’s Register boats were never more than a few places apart, with Sailing Life Matters coming home four places ahead of Starlight Express. The two Trinity House crews were also vying with each other during the second race, arriving at each mark as a pair. Although the Buoy Racers led for most of the race, As Good Asset Gets just stole it on the final beat up to the finish.
That final beat was a frustrating one for Onboard Napa. Although spending much of the race in the middle of the fleet, they made good progress in the second half, climbing a few places through the fleet. Then, as they made their first tack on the short final beat for the line, the jib sheet jammed on the winch and held the jib backed. They were effectively hove-to.
They had no option but to bear away, run the other sheet round and haul it tight to take the tension before they could free the first sheet. By the time they were back on course, they estimated that five boats had passed them. “The word ‘disaster’ springs to mind”, said one of the crew in the bar later.
Among the last to finish was Castrol, who turned for home as soon as they had finished. In fact, they commented later, they were not sure that the whole boat crossed the finishing line “as on hearing the horn, the fastest and most direct course was taken for kick-off at 5pm.”
So Fairplay’s Press Gang finished the day 2-0 up against all-comers. And England matched the score in the side show held in Germany, much to the disappointment of the V.Ships crew.
This was not only because the core of the crew is Scottish, but because one of their number was a Trinidad-passport-carrying lady. When England scored its first goal, she announced that she would run through the streets of Portsmouth to the Warrior if Trinidad won. Naked. “You’ve never heard a crowd cheer so loudly for the opposite side during those last five minutes of a football game,” a fellow crewmember said.
But Fairplay Cup guests were not able to enjoy that spectacle, instead being wined and dined on the open deck of the 1860-built warship Warrior where trophies were awarded and tales grew taller.
Some awards are obvious; others are more subjective. Take the safe sailing trophy, for example. With only light airs, there was little danger to be avoided and many crews were rigorous about wearing lifejackets at all times. Clearly, the award had to go to the crew that stayed furthest from the action and avoided all conflict: Pacific Basin.
Then there was the best boat name award. This is often controversial and this year was no different. Faced with some imaginative efforts, the Fairplay staff chose North of England’s Pandi Monium as being both a clever pun and describing the spirit of the day.
Wärtsilä, justifiably, felt that Strong Finnish was just as worthy and engaged your reporter in a debate about English humour over dinner while Lloyd’s Register’s Starlight Express team decided that the panel of judges was made up of “paid-up members of the Society for the Abolition of Andrew Lloyd Webber Musicals,” which is quite true.
For some, this was just the start of the evening. Trinity House’s crews know how to party and moved on to “the delights of Portsmouth’s nightclubs,” no doubt venues that generations of sailors have enjoyed over the years. A video replay is said to be available.