Sail Boats

March 17th, 2011 admin

Going back to rowing’s roots (BBC )

A common assumption made about my rowing career is that, as a Cornish girl, I
must have started out in a pilot gig, and I was always ashamed to admit I’d
never even tried it.

I put that right on a beautiful, still, late summer’s evening in the estuary
at Falmouth, which made a welcome change from the normally freezing mornings
and biting winds when training with the GB squad on the Thames.

The scene was only enhanced by the wooden pilot gigs, each one named and
painted in bright colours, and they really are beautiful constructions
compared to the forgettable yellow and black plastic German-made shells that
we race in.

The pilot gigs make for a spectacular scene at Falmouth. Photo: gigrower.co.uk

Cornish pilot gigs date back to the days of sail, when large ships attempted
to wind their way into the dangerous ports in Cornwall and the Scilly Isles
and needed someone with local knowledge and experience in navigation.

The licensed Trinity House pilots had crewed boats to row them out to the
incoming ships and, when one was spotted on the horizon, there was often a
race to get out to it as …

BBC

One of World’s Fastest Sail Boats Capsizes in California