Clearing The Course For The Boat Race

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6864, 21 May 1932, Page 13

Clearing The Course For The Boat Race

SHEPHERDING OF STEAMERS, TUGS, AND BARGES IS QUITE A BIG TASK

HEOPLE who never have seen the annual boat race between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge must often have wondered how the course for the four-mile race on such a busy river as the Thames is kept clear. The duty of clearing the course devolves upon an inspector for the Port of London Authority, and this inspector’s work is indicated in the following article from a London paper:— A few minutes before the pistol fires which sends the Oxford and Cambridge crews on their strenuous journey, a large motor-boat flying the blue and white lettered flag of the Port of London Authority hurries over the course from end to end. It is the last moving thing to disturb the Putney to Mortlakc waters before the racing crews themselves do so. In that motor-boat is the man who has done his best to secure an unruffled surface for the eights. All through those days of preparation while the rivals have been training on the tidal waters he has sheltered their craft under his official wing; he has talked reproachfully, yet tactfully, to careless tug-masters; he has nudged to the side the blundering barges; and he has uttered suitable English phrases to skippers of Continental motorschuyts who may think fit to act as if the place belonged to them. Ever since Christmas he has conned the lengthening list of tugs,, barges, motor-boats and steamers which have to be allotted moorings for the day of the race. He has seen to it that the positions of these are in accordance with the directions of the River Superintendent, and in moving about the course before the race he takes care that no onlookers’ vessel encroaches on its neighbour’s pitch. Guardian of Father Thames. Finally, having observed earlier in tho day that the wreck lighters and bax-ges just below Putney ridge have been drawn across the fairway so as to prevent anything fi-om entering the course from seaward, he passes in the big blue motor-boat along the entire Putney to Mortlake stretch, and waits beyond the finishing-point for the arrival of the universities’ crews. This year Inspector Fred Rough waited their ai’rival with more than a little regret in his heart, for this was the last occasion on which he will have been acting as guardian angel of the boat race course. Before the 1933 boat race takes place Inspector Rough will have retired from the Poi't Authority’s service. ’’For four generations my people have been connected with the river,” he told a representative of the paper. “My great-grandfather was assistant water bailiff to the Corporation of the City of London and the Medway. . My grandfather held the same position, and my father was a River Keeper under the Thames Conservancy. I started with the Thames Conservancy, came over to the Port of London Authority, when that body was created, and this is the 33th boat race at which I have been on duty.”

Inspector Rough cherishes among his treasures an old parchment document relating to the appointment of his grandfather, and he showed a poster relating to regulations to be observed over the course when the Harvard College crew rowed against the Cambridge crew in 1903. The document bears the name of his father at the foot. Change and Improvement. “I consider that in the years during which I have watched the boat race the design of the boats has been markedly improved by the introduction of a stream-lined shell, and I should say that the quality of the oarsmanship has made great progress with time.” Inspector Rough gave it as his view, based on nearly 40 years of experience, that, normal conditions prevailing, the crew to gain the lead hy the time Chiswick Ferry was reached was sure to win. Apart from some cxtraoi’dinary nappening, the result had been decided by that point. “I don’t think that the public yet sufficiently appreciates the excellence of the rowing to be seen in the head of the river race which takes place on the same day as the universities’ boat race, nut in the opposite direction. It is a race against time, and the best record of the universities’ crews has been more than once beaten. The head of the river race hasn’t been going for long, but the number of competing crews has risen to well over 100.” Nor is it the boat race and the head of the river contest only which Inspector Rough had to watch ovci*. All through the summer he and his assistants have been hovering round and looking after things at the local regattas up to and beyond Richmond. It is not unusual for the summer’s total to reach more than 30 regattas or races, quite apart from a number of swimming matches brought off in the western section of the port. New Zealand's “Best” Cricket Team. As a provocative subject for an argument, or a pastime for a winter evening, the picking of the “best representative” cricket team from a country’s cricketers of different decades has its moments, but it seldom is worthy of the expenditure of much time—it “gets one nowhere.” However, although we do not agree altogether with the choice that is made, there is a Dicker of interest in noting the New Zealand side that F. .1. C. Gustard includes in his choice of such sides for? the various cricket-playing countries, in an article in the “Cricketer Spring Annual.” It is as follows:—C. S. Dempster, .T. E. Mills, L. G. Hemus, D. Reese, R. C. Blunt, J. S. Iliddleston, T. C. Lowry (captain), C. F. W. Allcott, K. C. James, W. S. Brice, J. H. Bennett, with D. McK. Sandman as twelfth man, *, * » If the members of the New Zealand Rugby Union’s Management Committee could be compelled to play a strenuous game of 40 minutes each way, on a cold, wet day, without their being permitted to leave the field at halftime, would not the players of the present day enjoy the sight?