14th June: First Henley Regatta

On this date in 1839 the first Henley Regatta was held.

1. Back in March of that year, the mayor of Henley announced that Henley would hold a rowing contest in order to attract visitors to the town. The first regatta took place over just one afternoon, but it was so popular that it became an annual event. The following year the event lasted two days. In 1886 the Regatta was extended to three days and to four in 1906. In 1986 the Regatta was extended to five days.
2. The regatta has been known as Henley Royal Regatta since 1851, when Prince Albert became the first royal patron. Since his death, every reigning monarch has agreed to be the patron.
3. It costs around £3 million a year to stage the regatta. It is mostly funded by the organising stewards - their membership fees and ticket purchases. The Regatta is one of the few major sporting occasions today which doesn't rely on commercial sponsorship or outside subsidy.
4. The regatta pre-dates national and international rowing federations, and therefore has its own rules and isn't subject to their jurisdiction.
5. The rules have caused controversy in the past, however, in particular the definition of what constitutes an amateur (the regatta has always been intended for amateur oarsmen). As well as excluding those who had rowed for prizes of money, or who had earned money from coaching rowers, the definition included one very classist clause, excluding anyone "Who is or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer." In 1920, an American contestant who had served an apprenticeship as a bricklayer was barred under this rule. The press of the time assumed it was to stop an American from winning the Diamonds. According to the minutes of the management committee, the American also belonged to a boat club which had raised the money for their trip through public donations, which meant he broke two of their rules. This incident may have been forgotten, but for the fact the contestant, John B. Kelly, Sr., had two children. His son won the Diamond Sculls in 1947, and his daughter, Grace, became a world famous movie star and Princess of Monaco. The rules were changed in 1938.
6. The races take the form of knock-out competitions between two crews at a time, which means there can be up to 90 races per day, beginning at five minute intervals.
7. The course is course of 1 mile, 550 yards (2,112 m) long. Each crew is assigned to row on either the 'Bucks' (Buckinghamshire) or 'Berks' (Berkshire) side of the course.
8. The regatta is regarded as part of the English social season, and as such is subject to strict dress codes in the Stewards' Enclosure. Men must wear a jacket (a blazer with rowing club colours will do nicely) and tie. Women must wear dresses with hemlines below the knee. People are checked before they go in and can be turned away if they don't pass muster. Once inside, they must wear their membership badges at all times and not use mobile phones. People have been thrown out of the enclosure for using their phones.
9. The Regatta owns the land on which the Enclosures and car parks are situated and some of the land on the opposite (Buckinghamshire) bank. After the regatta, all traces of it are removed from the river banks and re-erected in time for the next one, in order to preserve the natural beauty of the area.
10. If you're thinking of entering, entries for the regatta close at 6:00 pm sixteen days before the Regatta, and qualifying heats are held the week before. The draw is a public event that takes place in the Henley town hall, normally at 3 pm on the Saturday before the regatta. If there are a number of outstanding crews in an event, the Stewards may pre-select them, to prevent them from meeting too early in the competition.

13 June: William Butler Yeats

Today is the anniversary of the birth of William Butler Yeats (1865) Irish poet and dramatist who won the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature.

1. Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
2. There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.
3. But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
4. Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.
5. The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.
6. If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
7. I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.
8. The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
9. Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
10. Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet.

12th June: The Rotherhithe Tunnel

On this date in 1908 the Rotherhithe Tunnel was opened. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a tunnel under the River Thames.

1. The road which travels through the tunnel is the A101. The tunnel consists of a single bore, 4,860 feet (1,481m) long, carrying a two-lane carriageway 48 feet (14.5m) below the high-water level of the Thames, with a maximum depth of 75 feet (23m) below the surface.
2. It was designed by Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, the Engineer to the London County Council, whose other projects during his career included the Woolwich foot tunnel and the Aswan Dam.
3. Authorisation to build a tunnel under the River Thames connecting Limehouse to Rotherhithe came from the Thames Tunnel (Rotherhithe and Ratcliff) Act 1900. The decision was very unpopular with local residents as about 3,000 of them were forced to move to make way for it.
4. Back in 1908, most traffic was Horse drawn - so that is what the tunnel was designed for. The ventilation shafts were not originally put there to deal with car fumes, but the smell of horse poo. Also part of the reason for the sharp bends is to stop horses bolting towards the light at the end, although another reason was to avoid the docks on either side of the river.
5. At the time of its construction, the tunnel was said to be the largest subaqueous tunnel in existence.
6. When it opened, 2,600 vehicles a day used the tunnel. By 2005 usage was over 34,000 vehicles a day.
7. And about 20 pedestrians. Surprisingly, the Rotherhithe Tunnel is open to pedestrians and it's perfectly legal to take a walk through it, though not a particularly pleasant one! The original ventilation shafts, or cupolas, decorative red brick buildings, have spiral staircases for pedestrian access, but they were closed after being damaged in World War II and have never re-opened.
8. The pedestrian walkways were originally designed for the people who had the unenviable task of shovelling up all the horse manure in the early days.
9. A 2003 survey rated the tunnel the tenth most dangerous tunnel in Europe due to its poor safety features. It's also vulnerable to flooding as happened in the 1928 Thames flood. The speed limit is 20 miles per hour (32 km/h), enforced with average speed cameras; and large vehicles are banned because of the sharp bends. It closes overnight once a week for inspection and maintenance.
10. There is a £1million project underway to provide the tunnel with a public address system and radio and mobile phone reception.

11 June: First hovercraft launched

On this date in 1959 the first experimental hovercraft, designed by Sir Christopher Cockerell and built by Saunders-Roe, was launched at Cowes, Isle of Wight.

1. The idea of the modern hovercraft is most often associated with a British mechanical engineer Sir Christopher Cockerell. He got the idea from blowing a hairdryer into the gap between a catfood tin inside a Coffee tin.
2. A hovercraft is a hybrid vessel and its operator is known as a pilot as on an aircraft rather than a captain as on a sea vessel.
3. The design was demonstrated to various government departments and originally placed on the top secret list as ministers envisaged a military use for it. However, as Cockerel himself quipped after hovercraft had been pitched to various branches of the armed forces, "the navy said it was a plane not a boat; the air force said it was a boat not a plane; and the army was 'plain' not interested.'
4. Since the military weren't interested, there was no reason to keep hovercraft on the secret list, so it was declassified. Cockerell was finally able to convince the National Research Development Corporation to fund development of a full-scale model.
5. Cockerell wasn't the first person to come up with the concept. Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg wrote about the idea in 1716. The shipbuilder Sir John Isaac Thornycroft patented a design for an air cushion ship in the 1870s, but powerful enough engines weren't available until the 20th century.
6. Dagobert Müller built the world's first "air cushion" boat (Luftkissengleitboot) in 1915, but unlike modern hovercraft, it could only operate in Water, not on land, mud or ice.
7. The name Hovercraft was originally a trademark owned by Saunders-Roe (later British Hovercraft Corporation (BHC), then Westland), which is why some vehicles which are hovercraft are sometimes known by other names.
8. There is a hovercraft museum in Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire, England.
9. Sizes range from single seater hovercraft used for racing to the Russian Zubr class LCAC at 57.6 meters (188 feet) length and a maximum displacement of 535 tons. This hovercraft can transport three battle tanks, 140 fully equipped troops, or up to 130 tons of cargo.
10. The World Hovercraft Speed Record is 137.4 km/h (85.38 mph or 74.19 knots). This was achieved by Bob Windt at World Hovercraft Championships, Rio Douro River, Peso de Regua, Portugal on September 18, 1995. On land, the highest speed achieved is 56.25 mph (90.53 km/h or 48.88 knots), by John Alford at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA on 21 September 1998.

10th June: First Oxford/Cambridge boat race

On June 10th 1829 the first Oxford and Cambridge boat race took place, two miles from Hambledon Lock to Henley Bridge. It was won easily by Oxford. Here are 10 facts you may not know about the Boat race:

1. The course today covers a 4.2-mile (6.8 km) stretch of the Thames in West London, from Putney to Mortlake. It follows an S shape, east to west. The start and finish are marked by the University Boat Race Stones on the south bank. These have ‘UBR’ on them for “University Boat Race”.
2. It was started by two school friends from Harrow, Charles Merivale, a student at Cambridge, and Charles Wordsworth, who'd gone on to Oxford. They challenged each other to a race. The second race was seven years later in 1836, after which it became an annual event. Both teams preferred different courses and the current course was decided upon in 1839.
3. As of 2016 Cambridge has won the race 82 times and Oxford 79 times, with one controversial dead heat in 1877. The result was declared by that year's judge, John Phelps, but is disputed because not only was the weather bad, but Phelps was reportedly over 70 and blind in one eye. There were no finish posts back then either, although they were installed in time for the 1878 race.
4. Before the race the clubs' presidents toss a 1829 sovereign and the winner of the toss can choose which station, or side of the river, their team rows on. Middlesex station is the north bank of the river and Surrey, the south, and each has different advantages depending on the weather and the form of the crew.
5. The race can get very competitive as the crews compete for the fastest currents in the deepest parts of the river. It's not unknown for clashes to occur and crews can get warnings from the umpire (who will be either a former Oxford rower, or blue, or a former Cambridge one, alternating between the two). In these situations it's not only the rowers' shirts which are blue, but the cox's language can get pretty blue as well, which is why the "live" feed from microphones in the boats is delayed by a few seconds.
6. The boat race traditionally goes ahead, even in weather so bad that an international regatta would be cancelled. The Water can get pretty rough if there is a strong wind from the west, and so it's not unknown for boats to sink. Cambridge sank in 1859 and 1978; Oxford did so in 1925 and 1951; in 1984 the Cambridge boat sank after colliding with a barge before the start of the race, which was rescheduled for the next day. In 1912 the weather was especially bad with high winds, and both crews sank.
7. The fastest winning time is 16 minutes and 19 seconds by Cambridge in 1998. The slowest winning time was 26 minutes and 5 seconds by Cambridge in 1860. In 2012, no winning time was recorded because Trenton Oldfield swam between the boats to protest about spending cuts, so the race had to be stopped for half an hour for safety reasons.
8. The main race may be over pretty quickly but there are other races on the same day. Since 2015, the women's crews also race on the same day as do the reserves for both men and women. The men's reserves are known as Isis for Oxford and Goldie for Cambridge. The Isis is a section of the River Thames which passes through Oxford, and Goldie is named after Boat Club president John Goldie, 1849–1896, after whom the Goldie Boathouse is named. The women's reserve crews are called Osiris for Oxford and Blondie for Cambridge.
9. The rules state that rowers must be full time students of the universities they row for and will therefore have fitted their extensive training regimes around their studies. Training starts in September, six days a week, both in water and on land, and on rowing machines in the gym. Each member of the crew trains for approximately two hours for every stroke in the race. Famous participants include Lord Snowdon, Colin Moynihan, Hugh Laurie, TV presenter Dan Snow, Conspicuous Gallantry Cross recipient Robin Bourne-Taylor, four-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Matthew Pinsent, and the Winklevoss twins – known as the disputed joint founders of Facebook, who sued Mark Zuckerburg for stealing their idea.
10. At the end of the race, the boats come ashore at Mortlake Anglian and Alpha Boat Club near Chiswick Bridge. It is traditional for the winning side to throw their cox into the Thames.

Related Posts

Henley Regatta

The River Thames

June 9th: Peter the Great

Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, was born on 9 June, 1672. Here are 10 facts you may not know about him:

1. His father died when he was three; at that time, his older half-brother, Feodor III, inherited the throne but was weak and sickly and died without an heir seven years later. The next in line was another half-brother, Ivan V, but he was not only physically ill but mentally disabled as well, so the nobles decided Peter, at the age of ten, should be the next Tsar. While the Russian people approved of the decision, Ivan's sister Sophia wasn't happy about it. After some political wrangling on her part, Ivan and Peter became joint Tsars.
2. Peter and Ivan had a double throne with a big hole in the back - so Sophia could be quite literally the power behind the throne. When nobles came for audiences with the Tsars, she would sit behind them and tell them what to say. This throne can be seen today in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow.
3. The ten year old Peter didn't really care. He much preferred building boats and playing with his toy soldiers.
4. By the time he was 17, Peter was planning to take power from his half sister. He ran away to a monastery from where he gathered followers who believed he had what it took to oust her. When he finally did, Sophia was forced to give up all her titles and enter a convent. As he still wasn't of age to rule on his own, his mother was regent for a time. He was still jointly ruling with Ivan, officially, at least, until the latter died in 1696.
5. His mother arranged a marriage for him, to Eudoxia Lopukhina. The marriage was not a success and only lasted ten years, whereupon Eudoxia was also sent to a nunnery. About three years later, Peter took a mistress called Martha Skavronskaya, who converted to the Russian Orthodox Church and took the name Catherine. Rumour has it they married in secret in 1707, although there is no official record of it; but they were married officially in 1712.
6. Peter the Great was six feet eight inches (203 cm) tall, but was otherwise somewhat unprepossessing. He had narrow shoulders, small hands and feet and a small head. He also had facial tics, leading historians to believe he may have suffered from epilepsy.
7. Peter's reforms included the way people dressed at Court. He wanted his courtiers to dress fashionably as their contemporaries did in France. This is why he introduced a tax on Beards and long robes in 1698. Other reforms included changing the date of the new year from September to January; adopting the Julian Calendar; forbidding men to become monks before the age of 50 because he needed young men to serve in the army; and making St. Petersburg the capital.
8. Peter spent four months working in a shipyard, learning the skills, and helped to build his own ship, Peter and Paul. Not only did he learn the trade, but he head-hunted a number of experts and advisors. This all came in handy in his quest to make Russia a maritime power.
9. His eldest son, Alexei, was suspected of trying to overthrow him. He confessed to treason under torture, and was sentenced to death. The execution was never carried out because it needed the Tsar's signature, and Peter couldn't bring himself to sign his son's death warrant. So his heir died in prison, possibly from the effects of being tortured.
10. There is a legend that Peter died from rescuing some soldiers who were drowning in icy water, when he was recovering from bladder surgery. There is only one account of this, and some time elapsed between the incident and Peter's death, thus weakening the evidence of it being a direct cause; so historians tend to believe it was just that - a legend.

8th June: Joan Rivers

Today is the birthday of Joan Rivers, US comedian, actress, talk show host and businesswoman. She was born in 1933.

1. People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.
2. The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it.
3. I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.
4. Don't follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.
5. Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It's all funny.
6. I don't exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.
7. She doesn't understand the concept of Roman numerals. She thought we just fought in world war eleven.
8. It's been so long since I made love I can't even remember who gets tied up.
9. Ginger did everything Fred did, only backwards and in High Heels!
10. Humour doesn't come out of the good times, it comes out of the anger, pain and sorrow.