Traditionally, every year, Lawrenny Yacht Club organises an evening boat rally, on a suitably high tide, from Lawrenny to Cresswell Quay. This year’s event was held last Saturday and saw a fantastic turnout of boats and spectators.

The boats, whose skippers knew the route and were able to navigate their way through the channel (which is very narrow at low tide), began to leave Lawrenny at about 5.30 pm, with those not quite as brave leaving shortly afterwards when there was a little more water. Some were dressed overall, a lot of crew were in fancy dress and quite a lot of boats were ‘dressed up’ as well. One boat had turned into a fort, a larger one was in camouflage and there was Old MacDonald’s Farm, to name a few.

Besides boats from Lawrenny Yacht Club, it was great to see that a lot of boats from further down the Haven come up for the event. There were 75-plus boats, plus lots of kayaks.

The weather was very kind and about 600 people were treated to entertainment by the excellent Samba Doc band on the quayside.

The staff of the Cresselly Arms worked flat out as visitors tried to drink the pub dry and the BBQ volunteers worked tirelessly to serve the never ending queue of hungry customers.

Commodore Alistair Hill awarded prizes for the best dressed, children, adults and boats.

A great night - we will look forward to next year’s event.