At the start line for Saturday's first race there were twenty Gaff or similarly rigged yachts. They ranged from a fifty plus year old 10ft timber gaff rigged skiff replica MERLE, with a crew of three and a healthy spread of sail, to a recently impeccably refurbished Couta Boat CRYSTAL.  

It’s been a while coming but I’m finally realising Regatta’s are not necessarily about the glamorous and high-end boats they are about the people you meet and race against on the way through.

If you have a classic dinghy (by the broadest of definitions) you are welcome and you are supported. Some of the boats are spectacular and some them look like they have been dragged of the rafters in the garage for the first time in forty years.

This little event has always been aligned closely with SWS’ values. Community based, volunteer run, racing but not for sheep stations… all the right ingredients… Get Involved!

Many of those isolated hamlets are most easily accessible by boat rather than car, so in 1959, a group of librarians secured government funding to launch a waterborne library service with a special emphasis on children’s literature.

In celebration of this rich dialogue and in expectation of more to come, we are republishing (in no particular order) some of our favourites comments from this year.

And along the way, we’ve met people like you who appreciate the craft, relish in the history and simple enjoy the stories and beautiful images that seem to turn up in their inbox on a weekly basis…Jokes and melancholia aside - here’s the BUT - we really need your help.

Why did this have to end? The perfect weather, the beautiful craft, the friendships… did we really have to go home the next day?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last six months publishing articles on SWS it’s that the events that do best are created by enthusiasts on the ground, having an idea and then making it happen.

Here, summertime Wednesday night racing seems to be a form of sailing cult.

“Owning a timber Dragon has been a dream of mine for a long time, and when I was lucky enough to notice Siena on eBay in 2009, I knew my heart had to rule my head and I had to put in the winning bid.”

With just a week remaining in this bizarre year, it would have been surprising if there wasn’t a twist in the tail of 2020.