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Easter Eggs at Tamesis on Easter Sunday

Published 11:36 on 7 Apr 2026

Easter Egg Pursuit Race - reporting from Peter Bide

On Easter Sunday the fleet preparing for the Easter Egg Pursuit Race was faced with a strong westerly wind with challenging gusts of over 30mph, swinging from southwest to northwest. Race Officer Peter Bide set a long L course from just below Kingston Bridge to Hawkers slip just above Lensbury and rostered three patrol boats. Several crews decided that discretion was the better part of valour, but 11 boats set off. There was a tricky patch of light winds with sudden gusts from all directions off the lower end of Stevens' Eyot, which was difficult to get through, and some very challenging gusts past Canbury Gardens and down towards Lensbury, all of which caused several capsizes.

Toby Swinson-Howell in a Topper led until halfway through the race, when he was overhauled by Ilker Sener and Ros Warwick-Haller in Lasers. Ros and Ilker were racing boat on boat until Ros got caught in a wind-hole near the end of the race. Matt and Arthur PJ set a blistering pace from their start at the back of the fleet, steadily overhauling the other boats and catching Ros and Ilker three-quarters of the way through the race to take the lead, which they held to the finish. The last crew to start, Alison Cooper and Chris Bowles in N18 Zephyr, made steady progress through the fleet, but couldn't quite catch the Merlin, or the two Lasers and Toby's Topper, and were 5^th.

Martin Zamecnik and Niki Vondrakova, in the Club's Wayfarer Limpet, sailed a strong race, saying that they enjoyed the challenging conditions, to finish 6^th. Denis Nevili sailed his Topper to 7^th place, and the two Club Fevas, sailed by Flora Swinson-Howell and Jon Howell, and Jameson Buchanan and Seb Geering, had a close race to finish 8^th and 9^th respectively.

All the competitors were awarded very well-deserved chocolate Easter eggs!

Many thanks to the Box team, Peter Bide and Andrew Craig, and the patrol boat crews, Geoff Malseed, Martin Thomas, Jim Hamilton, Brian Harper-Lewis and Phill McGowan.