By Isle of Wight Observer
A puzzled spectator at yacht racing penned a missive to the Isle of Wight Observer published on 25th August 1888 complaining that he didn’t understand the rules – and suggested that those deciding the outcomes had trouble with them too!
YACHT RACING. – A SUGGESTION.
To the Editor of the Isle of Wight Observer.
Dear Sir, – I am a visitor, and used to like coming to Ryde and the seaside to see the yacht racing, but I must say the whole business is got so uninteresting that I would hardly go out of my way to see a yacht race now. The reason is this, you see a lot of yachts all coming in together, and when you are prepared to throw up your cap and cheer for the one who leads by a clever bit of “jockeying,” the same as you would at a horse race, you are pulled up by a sarcastic remark and you find some unknown yacht, quite in the background, has “saved her time”. How is a simple member of the general public to feel any interest in anything of the sort. I don’t know whether yachtsman are so exclusive that they don’t want to confer any pleasure upon the humbler members of the community who cannot afford to keep yachts. Perhaps they don’t care. Still, I should think they might do so without much trouble, by allowing time at the commencement of the race. It would give a little interest to the race, for when we see the yachts passing, at the end of the Pier, we should know who led, and should be able to follow her fortunes with interest for the rest of the day. What is there to excite one in learning that, after an arithmetical puzzle which completely prostrated the committee, so-and-so was found to be the winner? I am sure it must puzzle the committee, because they are so long working out their problems.
AN IGNORAMUS
P.S. – I have made a fool of myself, no doubt, but I should like some fellow who knows all about it to tell me where. As it is, I find even yachtsmen don’t seem to know anything about a race now, or who is winning.