Type "Weird European Festivals" in to any search engine, and one of the first things you'll come across is Belgium's famous Régate de Baignoires de Dinant or the International Regatta of Bathtubs. Apparently started for the sole reason of increasing tourism in the area, the race sees hundreds of hopefuls paddle down the River Meuse in all manner of homemade floating crafts, the only rules being that they have to be man powered, and constructed to include a bathtub. Forget Girl Guide style wood and barrel rafts roped together with every knot under the sun. These raft builders are professionals! Huge floating platforms holding teams of twenty, with in built bars, Dj's and even trampolines take to the river in an attempt to win the most prestigious of the competitions awards, for best design.
Having watched the fun unfold last year in the blazing heat, we decided 2010, the 28th year of the race, we would be the first British team to give these Belgian Bathtub fanatics a run for their money (or medals as it turned out). In theory, it sounded easy - get a bath, make it float and win the race. Little did we know that the previous years glorious sunshine would have turned into torrential rain, or how tricky raft building with seven opinions can be.
Régate de Baignoires de Dinant 2009 in the SUN!
We signed up for the race at the start of the year, but didn't actually have a team in place until two weeks before, at which time we realised we had no bath, no wood, no floating devices and no friends in Belgium to borrow from. Nevermind though, nothing like a last minute challenge to kick all in Spoonville into an uncontrollably excited scavenging frenzy. We wrote adverts on all the local second hand websites, trawled the streets 'borrowing' from wheelie bins and supermarket car parks, and even managed to pull in favours at The Boys work. We had everything we needed except the rather crucial element of the bath! Still, we had more important things to worry about - the design and decoration of the winning vessel.
Our original idea was to create a 'Thoroughly British' boat in the shape of a London Bus in which we would be dressed as The Queen, a London Bobby - all things traditionally British. With one week left to source the materials though, we were being slightly ambitious, so ended up collecting everything and anything we could that was British, sadly in the wake of the World Cup that meant mostly England flags and Chav gear, not quite the style we'd wanted to lead England to bathtub victory, but at least we had a theme! Now all we had to do was build the thing.
We all arrived late Friday night (after a last minute bathtub purchase from a local hardware store), giving us a full day of building before the race the following day. We had seven floating barrels, four long planks of wood, four packing creates, six paddles (ingeniously sourced and bought all the way from the UK for a mere £2!), loads of string, inflatables, England gear, no design and seven very different ideas! Now, I must confess with four excited boys flinging testosterone, the female contingent stepped back at this stage of the process and stocked up on beer for what we could see was going to be a very long day! It took several hours, surrounded by intrigued campers, trips for more materials, and designs to come up with the final blueprint.
Design 1
Testing design 2
Design three, the one we all agreed on relied heavily on our resident knot expert. As the son of a champion knot tier (I kid you not) he lashed barrels to wood in seconds whilst we helped by... passing the scissors, or a beer from time to time!
Knot tier extraordinaire!
With everyone's help at different stages (I banged in four nails!), including the campers around us who kindly glued our bathtub plug in place (rather essential I feel) and lent us endless tools, we managed to have the raft race ready by 8.30pm.
Amazing raft in action
Okay so it didn't quite look like the London Bus we imaged, or like the others in the floating carnival awaiting our arrival, but it did look like it would hold us all without sinking, and by this stage in the day that was the sole objective.
Race Day. The rain started at about 10am and didn't stop until the following morning, so our seven strong very wet England flag adored team arrived for the registration and managed to squeeze our comparatively miniscule raft in amongst huge ship like contraptions that blasted out music whilst their teams downed endless local Leffe beers. With a two hour wait, and no shelter we too embraced the Belgian spirit and guzzled a few of the famously strong brews, and even managed to get interviewed for some unknown local TV station, to which we proudly claimed that size didn't matter - we would still win!
Then, suddenly, with no warning whatsoever (and half of our team in the toilet) the race began. After screaming and clambering onto our raft for it's maiden voyage with the help of friendly campsite neighbours we managed to get ourselves in the water in seconds and catch up with the locals. What happened next, was a blur; water bombs flying, bath bailing, paddle heaving and much screaming as other teams, and even the impressively large crowd towered above us and showered us with water despite the torrential downpour that was fast filling our tub. Still, we powered on through, paddling and bailing with all our might, leaving the others behind and finishing a close second to the annual winner who leisurely completed the course in his pedalo-style bath (surely not allowed!). So there we have it, the first all British team to take second place in this bizarre and amazing event.
I'm not entirely sure any of the other teams actually aim to win the race, it seems drinking, paddling and having a huge water fight are the appeal for the majority, but we wanted to walk away with something, and that we did! At the evenings ceremony we were called on stage and presented with seven shiny medals, and a Blackberry phone (which we decided to give to The Boy given all his hard work/expense in sourcing baths and materials) to remind us of our glorious victory.
Winning team, minus one who took the photo!
Despite the rain, it was a fantastic day. We had an amazing raft that stayed afloat, swam in the Meuse, got on telly, won a medal and met some lovely generous people, and more importantly can now announce with pride that we've represented our Country in an international race - what more could we ask for?
A Huge Thank You to all the lovely staff and residents at Camping De Devant Bouvignes in Dinant for helping us transport our raft, cheering us on from the river banks and even helping us get rid of the materials after. True legends for being so kind to us noisy foreigners!
And of course a big cheer for all our team who's hard work paid off making it such a memorable day.
Same time next year for the Belgium Bathtub Regatta chaps?
*I've just spotted our TV appearance:
http://en.rian.ru/video/20100816/160218905.html
and a photo - spot the little boat in the right hand corner here: http://www.travbuddy.com/photos/reviews/136051
0 comments:
Post a Comment