Well it went like a dream. The weather was perfect: lightish ‘Footy’ winds in the morning increasing to B-rig conditions for the tippier yachts in the afternoon.

31 boats turned up and had one ‘fun’ race together (actually to get super pictures – not yet available – of the biggest Footy start ever). After that, the fleet was divided into heats.

The nicest thing probably was that, despite the huge difference in experience between the top and bottom of the fleet, there was no acrimony: the experienced helped the inexperienced and the inexperienced were not intimidated. As far as one can tell, everyone had a super day out. For me, in particular, it was very gratifying to have names on the register and voices at the end of the phone line turn into real people and real boats – and what is more, nice people and nice boats.

That’s the important bit – the really important bit. A wheelchair is not the best base for an Investigative Roving Reporter, so what follows is nothing more than a private subjective view.

Non-sensation: measurement went smoothly – and it is believed that this was accomplished without binding OR trussing Roger Stollery, architect of the rule. This has to bode well for the future.

So – sensation – we had two (permanent) sinkings. Charles Smith’s brand new boat sank on the first run of the fun race. Charles has to be one of the most positively minded people I have ever met: rather than wiping tears from his eyes, his first reaction was to ask ‘I’ve got another one on the stocks. Shall I just keep the same sail number?’

In the afternoon, Bill Green’s Lajabless was lost with all servos when she sailed herself under. Bill (basically an A Class and 6 Metre man) is now in the market for a new hull.

The fleet was tremendously diverse, ranging from John Cadenhead’s original Bobabout GBR 1, built by him and Brett McCormack in New Zealand to some very mean and very new machines, some of which actually worked. Others quickly retired from the scene. What was tremendously gratifying was the amount of home design and construction. Anyone who saw the fleet on Sunday would entirely give up any idea of trying to transform Footys into a one design. For better or worse, they are now the most open development class in Britain. Boats include Pete Nicholls Zero Carbon Footprint, which was anything but zero carbon, Phillip Wiles very impressive vacuum formed SWIFT 5 design – complete with sail winch – my own carbon/depron 2-masted Akela, and two of Roger Stollery’s new Ant design. This is still built from Corex board taped together, but it is double chined and quite evidently designed more with performance and less with ease of construction in mind. Having said that, Roger’s nest of lent-out Bugs were not doing badly either.

Good boats or bad boats – what counted at the end of the day was preparation and skill. On the odd occasions when Akela managed to break through these barriers, she was devastatingly fast, but very properly ended up somewhere round the bottom of the fleet. It says a lot that boats from Southwater featured highly in the results. Under the guise of wrinkly dabblers they have some very shrewd operators among their number – and furthermore are currently the only club in Britain to have regular Footy racing with a decent sized fleet. Hopefully there will be more competition for them next year.

And the nicest thing? Ray Baxter’s Footy Thames barge, topsail, mizzen and all. This did not actually race, which was a pity since it sailed astonishingly well. Its only vice was its dinghy, hung in davits on its starboard quarter. On port tack this tended to fill, which made going about seriously problematic!

Yes, fun was had by all and the class has taken another step towards maturity.

The results were: