Kingston River Festival 2025

Kingston River Cultures Festival Saturday 6th September

This turned out to be a very popular and dramatic event. The sailing part was organised jointly by Tamesis Club with Minima YC and Thames Sailing Club. The fun is best summed up through photos.

The day started with a procession of assorted manually and motor powered craft. This was observed from the Minima YC balcony by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh together with Tamesis representatives John Adams, Carolyne Vines, Matthew Peregrine-Jones and Lyra Wade. The procession ended with a demonstration of Watermen maneuvering a lighter the old-fashioned way with two large oars and a further blade for steering.

HRH and Tamesis representatives - Photo Marcus Chavasse

Lightermen - Photo Marcus Chavasse

The Tamesis Gazebo was already doing brisk business explaining to members of the public what dinghy sailing is all about and what we offer at Tamesis Club. Carolyne Vines would like to extend huge thanks to them all for their help and enthusiasm whether going out and canvassing the crowds or staying nearer the stall and chatting to passers by. It was very successful in raising the profile of the club, and well worth the effort.

Photo Zoe Adams

Then into the sailing. It was sunny but with a challenging wind from the SSE gusting up to F6. Thames A-Raters appeared majestically to prepare near a very busy start line. The first event was a pursuit race with the slowest boats going off first. I particularly enjoyed this viral video of near-chaos on the line. Spot the Tamesis sailors.

I was delighted to see that Peter Impey in his ILCA 7 was successful (using the old trick of wetting the sails first to stop the air going through them?) in holding off the A-Raters in the Pursuit to take third place as the lead Tamesis boat. Full results may be found here.

Photo Carolyne Vines

Photo Carolyne Vines

Photo Marcus Chavasse

Photo Marcus Chavasse

Photo Richard Chavasse

Photo Joe McLaughlin

With a fair amount of carnage on the raceway, what had been billed as a procession of sail never seemed to happen. However, the Tamesis Juniors were heavily reefed and freshly ready for action. The Principal Race Officer laid on a special short race for them. This was the warm-up for the main Junior Race which was on handicap and which was organised with two flights starting separately but competing in one big handicap race. On the day the Fusions (I & II) from Thames Sailing Club performed well. The top three Tamesis boats were sailed by Lyra Wade, 4th ILCA7, Max McLaughlin, 5th Topper, and Arthur Peregrine-Jones, 6th Topper. The full results which may still contain a few gremlins may be found here.

Congratulations to all competitors for the excellent seamanship displayed!

Photo Joe McLaughlin

Photo Joe McLaughlin

Photo Joe McLaughlin

Photo Joe McLaughlin

A very big thank you to all Tamesis members who helped out. The Tamesis community list is long and rightly includes many besides the following who have put in huge amounts of time an effort John Adams, Carolyne Vines, Marcus Chavasse, Matt Peregrine-Jones, Joe McLaughlin, Zoe Adams, Tom Jones, Sue Brearley, Hayen Bhouri, Peter Impey, Phil Worsley, Jim Hamilton, Barbara Adams, Charles Fox, Rob Hatley and Brian Harper-Lewis.

From John Adams:

"On behalf of the River Festival Committee and myself, I would like to thank all at Tamesis, for the time effort and skill they put into making the Sailing component of the Kingston 2025 River Festival the success that I feel it was.

This project has taken lot of planning to bring to fruition a concept of making sure that the past and present role and importance of sailing to the Kingston community was included in the celebration of Kingston's diverse history and culture.

As well as all those involved in that planning, and in the translation of that planning into actions like making sure boats were transported to and from Minima, that we had support boats to help, I would like to thank all those that sailed, particularly the juniors who coped admirably with a fresh wind and a large number of boats.

A key component of the event was the expert commentary provided by Mark Laity, Commodore of Thames Sailing Club and author of a book charting 150 years of sailing on the Thames. This would not have been possible without Brian Harper-Lewis's generous loan of his well-travelled PA system.

Thanks to you all."

Photo Tom Jones