Porthleven Dinghy Club Does Flora Day 2009
Words by Sport Dinghying legend Matt Orchard

At the recent PDC AGM, it was decided that Flora Day 2009 would see the first annual Porthleven Dinghy Club race across Helston Boating Lake. An opportunity for the PDC elite to battle it out for supremacy, in what promised to be the dinghying event of the year. It sounded good in theory, but come Flora Day it was a different story, as it was soon all too obvious that only Harry Masters and myself had actually turned up to Flora Day with anything resembling a dinghy.

It turned out that most other members had forgotten to stop drinking since they began the night before, and had therefor not been home, resulting in a distinct lack of organisation amongst members. But this has never stopped the PDC in the past, so there was no reason why any lack of organisation (or boats for that matter) should hold us back today, so off we went to recruit crew to man our fine, albeit easily overcrowded vessels.

Our search took us to one of Flora Day's best watering holes 'The Bell Inn', where as expected we found exactly what we were looking for, Porthleven Dinghy Club elite athletes. Lady fate was finally on our side when we quickly bumped into two of the village's finest rowers, 'Matt Bez' and 'Seb Furneux' had successfully returned last nights alcohol back to optimum levels and were more than ready to honour the call of duty to their club.


Mongalloyd, Rohan and Irishman Fergal also in 'The Bell', cleverly dressed as Clowns to avoid Lloyd having another run in with Flora Police over last years indecent exposure problems. Fortunately for all of us Lloyd did actually manage to keep his clown suit on.
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Harry and I already had our get up, a rude-as-you-like vintage wetsuit and a classic pair of Bermuda shorts. But we needed the boys to look equally as cool as us, as incase you hadn't already guessed, being in the PDC is all about the image. There was only one place to head for such items, the local charity shop, and after some successful haggling Bez was soon armed with a hideous gooch revealing wetsuit, whilst Seb on the other hand went for a leotard, which being at least 4 sizes to small, was perfectly suited for the task at hand. There would be no way anyone could ignore us now, the attention we so desperately sought would definitely be ours.

Following a quick stop at Harry’s van to inflate our dinghys and pick up supplies (Lambrini) we headed for our launch spot, under St' Johns Bridge. As we neared the centre of town we could see crowds of adoring fans lining the curbs and Helston town band were even out to cheer us on. We were finally getting some recognition for all our hard work, surely the Mayor with a key to the town awaited us? How wrong we were. It turned out it was in fact time for the midday dance and us idiots with our dinghys were right in the way. A swift detour and more than a few bemused looks later we had found a back alley out of there and had made it to the bridge. A quick change into our dinghying apparel followed by a photo shoot for the fan club and we were off. Myself and Harry in the "Sport 1", followed Bez and Seb in "Tidal Wave".

Now I don’t know if you’re familiar with the river that runs through Helston, but it’s not for the faint hearted, and so is the perfect training session for our planned Oxford to London, River Thames mission this summer. Other than nearly getting run over by a mobility scooter whilst crossing the road next to the bridge, the days first real brush with death came in the form of an ambush from a cross-dresser by the name of "Gay Tom". Due to poor navigation, caused by waving to onlooking fans, we failed to spot Gay Tom until he was running full pelt straight at us from a nearby river bank, where he'd soon waded right out to us and boarded our dinghy. The Sport 1 is a fine vessel but even she couldn’t handle the weight of three men and we capsized. The water was freezing, booze was spilt and our bollocks made a hasty retreat north. Cheers mate!



“Tom, it’s not going to work! There’s no room. Go get some more booze and we’ll see you down the boating lake”. So onwards we continued, our next obstacle would be the “Rapids of Doom”. A notorious stretch of water which had claimed many souls over the years, and was yet to be successfully navigated. A white knuckle ride, 50ft waterfalls and more than a few arse-scrapings later we found ourselves on the other side, we’d survived and we felt alive. Our names would go down in history. But there was no time to celebrate. Up ahead lay some fallen trees blocking our passage. But, ever the professionals, the PDC train for this. Our bar-side athletics course includes the limbo alongside many other disciplines. “How low can you go?” Fucking low it turned out. We easily navigated ourselves through limbo after limbo that would have seen the finest Olympic limbo-ists running for the hills.



Finally we made it to the boating lake and got ourselves positioned on the starting line. The adrenaline was pumping and the tension was immense. Unfortunately for us the tension boiled over and a water fight broke out. Before we knew it our dinghy had been punctured and was on its way to Davy Jones' Locker. Seb and Bez rightfully claimed victory whilst myself and Harry were left to wade in through years upon years of duck poo and mud. It was a dark few minutes, a true walk of shame.

We returned to dry land and signed a few autographs for the crowd that had gathered whilst Bez and Seb basked in their winner’s glory. Once they returned for a quick swig of wine, Harry, Tom and I took their dingy for a quick spin. We got out to the middle of the Boating Lake when we spluttered to a halt, we’d run out of fuel (Lambrini). Luckily for us PDC member Doreen was sat on the lakeside with a spare bottle of Lambrini. Having just returned from her adventures with the British Army in the deserts of Iraq, Doreen's dessert training was showing clear advantages, i.e. always carrying more than enough to drink. Her training also means she's a lot stronger now, which almost proved catastrophic with the bottle she hurled my way almost knocking me out. While successfully avoiding being knocked out, I missed the catch and had to go fishing for it, Davey Jones may have claimed our dinghy but there was no way he was claiming our Lambrini.

Our antics were gaining us quite a lot of attention by now. However, it was not just the fans who were watching us, the local police were now on the edge of the Boating Lake and were calling us in. We couldn’t understand why though. Surely there’s nothing wrong with taking a boat out on a boating lake?
“Do you want our dinghys or our booze?” – “Both”
“What happens if we don’t paddle in?” – “We’ll arrest you when you do”
Bollocks, our day was over, we necked our Lambrini and made our way in.



The officers were quick to inform us that rowing in the Jubilee Boating Lake in unlicensed vessels was against local by-laws. We were ordered to deflate our dinghys, and just as they'd done to our good friend Mongalloyd last Flora Day, ordered us to leave Helston immediately. They also asked for our names and addresses, a situation Harry handled with what can only be described as words of sheer genius. “My name’s Louis Burnard… I’m from Praa Sands”.

With the Police tied up cautioning Harry and another officer giving Gay Tom fashion tips, the rest of us saw the opportunity to make a run for it - cross country style. scrambling off into the nearby woods to freedom, via some poor sods flower beds. We had successfully pulled off the greatest escape to ever take place in Helston.

Shortly after we rendezvoused back at the launch spot with the fugitives and figured we’d better get changed into something a little more subtle if we were going to stay in Helston. Tom had come prepared with an ever so elegant evening dress, we got back in our suits and off went to the Blue Anchor. Our training mission was a success, we’d proven not only to ourselves but also to the world's media that we were ready for the challenges that the Thames would bring. Although I have a sneaky suspicion that the Metropolitan Police may be harder to deal with than Helston Constabulary.


- A big thanks to Cally Barrett for letting us steal her photos.