I guess this is part of the Southampton Renaissance. Another step towards creating an increasingly exciting and engaged city experience. It’s been a busy year so far, with highlights including the launch of the new NST City and the John Hansard Gallery, Go! Southampton’s urban beach, the first Cultural City Conference and now this action-packed regatta!
As ever, these kind of things are thanks to ambitious and entrepreneurial individuals. Change only comes when someone’s got the balls to make it happen. In this instance, it’s Chris Rees who has pushed hard to pull this together.
Chris and his team at ReesLeisure teamed up with TheYachtMarket.com to create and run a brand new three-day sailing regatta alongside the UK’s biggest boat show, TheYachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show.
The brand new regatta was well timed and offered sponsors a great awareness platform. It also offered an opportunity for children across Southampton to race boats for the first time, thanks to The Community Cup.
The regatta has three different cups:
We pulled together a team which consisted of the most competitive (and available) talent from our client list, including Tom Elliot (Elliotts), Liam Doe (Lard Properties), Alan Scrace (SETsquared), Tim Keeping (Port Solent), Jonathan Bean (Wetwheels), Mike Moseley (Knowledge Transfer Network), James Welsh and John Thompson.
Our crack team was competing against five other teams: DDV - Dream Desire Vision, Mooloo Media, ActionCoach, Augmentas Group and of course ReesLeisure.
The conditions were perfect, the teams were fired up and the scene was set for some epic racing. Every team on the water competed strongly in each of the three races. Proceedings were watched over by a race boat, organised by Geoff Holt’s charity Wetwheels.
The Carswell Gould crew came together brilliantly and worked together like a well oiled, if not somewhat rusty, machine.
Ed Gould, Creative Director, Carswell Gould
Special mentions go out to ‘Captain B’ Tim Keeping for his Stella piloting, pit boss and line legend Tom Elliott and, of course, Liam Doe, who gets the ‘Best First Time Ballast’ award.
After a patchy first race, we got our act together and finished second and first in the following races. In the end, it wasn’t enough and ultimately we were robbed of the City Cup by the ReesLeisure team, who took first place in the first race - a race which we bitterly maintain should be voided due to the fact it was missing markers, or had invisible race markers which only ReesLeisure could see. We instantly tweeted our protests but to no avail - they fell on deaf ears and the result from this first race pushed us out of the top spot into second.
And so it was Chris and his team, including good few friends of ours, James Gough (Southampton Cultural Development Trust), Alastair Welch (ABP), Councillor Satvir Kaur and Councillor Daniel Fitzhenry who won the day and the City Cup.
The intrigue will rumble on and the stage is set for a grudge match to rival that of Balboa vs Drago!
A huge congratulations to everyone that took part in the day and a massive thank you to Chris and the ReesLeisure organising team. Thank you also to Sunsail, The Harbour Hotel and TheYachtMarket.com for hosting the regatta and the awards ceremony at the TheYachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show. It was a brilliant event for sailors and landlubbers alike and I fully recommend you join us and take a boat next year.
For more information on the event, check out https://www.theyachtmarket.com/regatta/.
Or, get in touch with us if you fancy being part of the Carswell Gould race team next year.
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