The Revival of the Three Burgee Trophy Saturday 12th September 2026

The Three Burgees Trophy was instigated in 1927 to be raced between the three clubs based on the Thames between Surbiton (Thames Sailing Club), Kingston (Minima Yacht Club) and Teddington (Tamesis Club) as a team race in dinghies.

In past years each club was represented by three boats of the same class. Latterly these were Merlin Rockets. While the Tamesis fleet of Merlins remains strong, the fleets at both Minima and Thames have become smaller over the years making it difficult to muster up a team of three boats. The event lapsed for this reason.

A very successful sailing event was organised by the three clubs in 2025 as part of the Royal Borough of Kingston's celebration of 1100 years since the crowning of Athelstan as King of all England. The sailing component of the Festival consisted of a Pursuit race for all the different classes sailed by the clubs, and a separate race for Juniors from each of the clubs.

As a result of the success of this event, representatives from the three clubs got together and decided to hold a similar event on annual event. hosted in turn by one of the three clubs. It was also felt that the Pursuit Race format could provide a format which could be used to revive the Three Burgess Trophy, as it is a format that recognises the wide variety of classes in the three clubs, and which also allows more people to participate.

The winner of the Three Burgees Trophy would be decided by the positions of the top three boats of at least two different classes from each club. The event would also include a general handicap race for Juniors after the Pursuit Race.

For the first running of the new Three Burgees Trophy on 12^th September, OOD Peter Mason brought his wealth of experience to the task of running the race. A briefing of competitors was held to clarify how the race would be run and particularly how the race would end. This race was run over 90 minutes with the slowest boats starting first with progressively faster boats starting at intervals thereafter. Finishing would be on the water with the position of each boat at the 90 minute bell being marked by OOD Peter Mason and his team from patrol boats on the water.

It was a glorious day to sail with sun, a relatively strong and gusty southerly wind. This provided a good beat up to a buoy well above Stevens Ait towards Kingston Railway Bridge and a run down to the second buoy well downstream of the club. The first boats to start at 2pm were the Fusion 2s from Thames SC and the last the glorious Thames A Raters 45 minutes later, again representing Thames SC. There a wide variety of classes racing, ranging from the Thames A Rater, and National 18 as the larger boats, Merlin Rockets, ILCAs, Enterprise, Solo and a Fusion2 sailed by a junior team from Thames Sailing Club. Photos on the link https://photos.app.goo.gl/DrKByy2sQRe79PfZ8

On the day Tamesis prevailed and took the trophy with Marcus Chavasse (Tamesis) winning outright in his ILCA7 only being challenged in the last few minutes by Thames A Rater Osprey sailed by Paul Browning, Carolyn Munday and Justin Dunn from Thames Sailing Club. Minima's Alex Cane and John Ford were third in Enterprise The Grand Sophie, Charlie Morgan with Peter Impey came in fourth in Merlin Rocket Fan Tan and John Adams and Zoe Adams came fifth in their Merlin Rocket, Saltarello, these two boats from Tamesis.

The combined result of 1^st, 4^th and 5th gave a convincing win to Tamesis who hold the Three Burgees Trophy until next year when there will have a similar event, this time hosted by Thames Sailing Club. Thames Sailing Club were 2^nd with 26 points just ahead of Minima on 27 points.

Following on from the pursuit race we had a very entertaining Juniors Handicap Race with 15 entries. Numerous spectators watched a close battle between the top three ILCA6s. It was hard to tell who would come out on top with Lyra Wade, Jameson Buchanan and Lily Faichney trading places constantly throughout the race with each of them taking the lead only for a gust or hole to provide opportunities to catch up, overtake, or be overtaken.

At the end of the race the order was Lyra, Jameson and Lily and it looked like these three would be the winners BUT once the handicaps were computed, the Toppers came to the fore with the final results being Mark Goldfarb in first, Evelyn Greenwood in second and a very rare tie with both Harry White and Eren Yildiz in third equal. Link to photos of the event can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mSRkijw77eSobBPZA

We all retired to the club house and while the results were processed the rest of us enjoyed delicious chocolate cake and some left over cold sausages from lunch time. A big thanks to Nicky Chavasse, the catering and bar staff for keeping us watered and fed.

The Prizegiving took place once the calculations had been finished. Commodore Tim Barr presented the prizes after thanking everyone for their contribution to a memorable event.