The Yarmouth Harbour Duck Rally
We took Lucca over to Yarmouth a day early in blissful conditions, but as we sat there looking at the weather forecast, we started to wonder how many boats would be joining us. Conditions deteriorated: the skies darkened, the wind got up and the rain set in. It did not look good, but we should not have doubted the resilience of PSYC club members. After all, we are not known as the best yacht club in Port Solent for no reason.
We were delighted when, one by one, club members arrived – all in need of fortification after the epic journeys they had undertaken.
After most of a day fighting the wind and tide in horrendous conditions, Sarah (Iapetus) and her mum returned to port and moved from sail to the dark side in a most dramatic way. They swapped sails for a hovercraft thus instantly became PSYC’s fastest members! Oh, with the obvious exception of Nicky and Richard (Sea Air) who were only momentarily slowed in their open-top speedster of a sports boat by the adverse weather. Apparently it clicked Nicky’s bad back into place – kill or cure!
The sailors arrived in full wets, weather-beaten and in need of restorative cups of tea. Several of the crew looked particularly green. The motor boaters were slightly less battered even though many had spilt their G&Ts on route! Everyone was pleased to be tied up.
Twenty-one boats arrived including two members (and some crewmates) on their first PSYC rally (Magic and Moonshine). There was also one new dog (Alonso from Magic) and a young person (the delightful Victoria off Moonshine) who is under-10 not under-50 in case you’re wondering.
There were two walks lead by Warren & Judy (Pleasure), paddle-boarding encouraged by Paul Depper (Blitz) and Chris Baulch (Skye Raye), Pop Master on Lucca and then there was the gentle murmur of people plotting to win the duck photo competition.
On the Saturday there was a carnival on the green, vintage cars on display, and the RNLI offered life jacket checks and the opportunity to tour the resident lifeboat. Something for everyone.
And so to the ducks! Twenty-four different ducks were purchased – each boat chose a duck and were supposed to enter one photo of a duck doing something interesting, with a bottle of Prosecco going to the best duck photo. All rally long you could hear proper grown-up people talking about what they were doing with rubber ducks – the WhatsApp group was full of duck photos. Young Victoria had to have a category of her own as she was leading the way on the technology front by instantly producing a very clever time lapse duck video!
Susan (Reef Knot) entered a duck photo even though they hadn’t actually arrived on the rally and just ‘happened’ to have a rubber duck around the house…….
The competition took on a life of its own. Hilary (Saskia) had to put out a plea for photos of people and boats as all we had were duck photos. We ended up with 47 duck photos – some of which are posted here. The staff at the Royal Solent Yacht Club kindly judged the competition for us in between serving dinner on the Saturday evening and the competition was won by Susan Scott (Reef Knot) with Victoria (Moonshine) getting Haribos as a prize for her amazing efforts.
We would very much like to thank all the rally attendees for their fortitude in getting there, for their good humour and their participation in making the Yarmouth Harbour Duck Rally such a fun event.
Sharon and Russ
(Rally Leaders)
Lucca
For the record:
Twenty-one boats attended: Amelie, Blitz, Bright Future, Gite, Happy Place, Highland Lady, Legato, Liberty, Lucca, Magic, Memsahib XIV, Moon Shadow, Moonshine, Paxi Moon, Pleasure, Reef Knot, Saskia, Sea Air, Shoogly Monster, Skye Raye, and Thomas Hardy – and Iapetus replaced by Uber, hovercraft, and two buses.
30 members had supper at The Bugle on the Thursday and 40 had an exceptionally fine evening and dinner at the Royal Solent Yacht Club on the Saturday.