H
CB ARCHIVE
ow quickly time passes! The Pin Mill Barge Match is one of the ‘new’ barge races, but it’s being sailed for the fiftieth time in late June. Pin Mill is a hamlet half way down the River Orwell in Suffolk. In the era of
working sail on the East Coast it was the home of bargemen, and barges came here to be repaired. A prime mover in establishing the race was Richard Duke, owner of the Millie. Passionate about saving barges, he persuaded Arthur Davies, commodore of the Pin Mill Sailing Club, to put on an event for Thames barges. By 1962 the traditional races for trading barges were being abandoned. In the Victorian era, the owners competed to have fast prize-winning barges because they wanted charterers to believe they could deliver fast freights. The last series of the Thames and Medway races, started in 1953, had become a duel between two big shipping companies, Everards and Crescent Shipping. They had maintained barges just for racing, but as it had all become far too expensive, they called a truce and agreed to abandon the old style Thames and Medway races. Everards went a step further and broke up their racing barges, Sara, Veronica and Dreadnought, a real tragedy, and the writing appeared to be on the wall for sailing barges.
“Younger bargemen should be allowed”
The Thames and Medway races had only been open to barges sailed by professional skippers and crews, and in the early years of the new Maldon and Pin Mill races, both dating from 1962, the barges were almost always skippered by former trading bargemen. But some of the older bargemen, now in their seventies, who had actually been retired for decades, started sailing into each other. It was then agreed that younger bargemen, who had never been on barges carrying a cargo, should be allowed to skipper during races. A lot of old bargemen shook their heads and reckoned they’d never do it. They were wrong – a generation has grown up exceptionally good at racing barges. In fact, with at least six main races on the East Coast every summer and often a few smaller ones as
well, the men and women sailing barges today have raced far more than the old trading skippers ever did. According to Fred Cooper’s Racing Sailormen, the first Pin Mill race was held on 8 August 1962, with seven barges entering. The Memory won, and it is rather depressing to record that of those seven barges, only the Marjorie is still sailing. Millie, Ardeer, Saltcote Belle (named after a cow!), Maid of Connaught and Spinaway C are rotting hulks or just names in barge books. In the 1964 race I sailed on the Memory with Headly Farrington as skipper and Hervey Benham as part of the crew. Headly was a very good trading skipper, but he
CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2011 47
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100