Harbour Carnival 2018

2018 has been a interesting year so far. In a good way, don't worry! It was the first in many years where I've attended the Guernsey Harbour Carnival, and the first year EVER where I've participated in an event for the Harbour Carnival. I've participated in a few other local events in the old days when I was involved with street dance.

For this year's Harbour Carnival, the climbing club entered a team into the Ladies Dinghy Race. Each team was made up of 6 women and there was a total of 19 teams entered. There were five heats (four teams in each heat, with three in the fifth heat) to begin with and the first two teams to win went through to the semis (the last heat only had the winning team go through to the semis), and then the winning teams from the three semis went through to the final, where the overall winning team would go gin tasting.

The teams begin the race with four team members at one end of the harbour and the other two at the other side. The four at the start paddle their way to the other side to collect the final two team members, and all paddle back to the start.



The Guernsey Mountaineering Club (our team) were in the fifth heat. The dingy races began at 6pm, so it was around 6:45pm by the time we were able to race. We spent our time before our race watching the other teams and deciding which tactics we were going to use for ourselves. There were a couple of teams who had good ideas which we actually changed our action plan to at the last minute; one person at the front of the dinghy guiding, two in the middle (one on each side) paddling and one leaning off the back kicking - the two at the other side then joined the middle two paddling.



Not the whole team

There were a few teams who needed a little assistance. One team steered themselves too far one way and turned 180 degrees, a few teams weren't having much luck getting to either side so needed to be towed from about half way, and one team even managed to sink their dinghy so swam back to the docks. I think it's safe to say that the GMC ladies were all thinking we were probably going to do that badly. However, I'm pleased to say that we came second in our heat, and it was close! Although third place was quite a way behind in comparison.

While I didn't really know what I getting myself into leading up to the event, I'm glad I signed up. I wouldn't have ever done it if I had passed on the opportunity this year and at least I can say I've done it.

Charlotte