Flashboat Race at Cawsand

Competitors take to flashboats and demonstrate speed and agility on the sea.

TV reporter Del Cooper is at Regatta Day in Cawsand in Cornwall. Activities take place on and off the water in a carnival-type atmosphere. Flashboats were originally modified working boats of fifteen or eighteen feet when after World War One people sought leisure activities. The boats are built for speed and need to be rowed fast to prevent capsizing as they have a streamline shape. Flashboats became useful for training rowers but in recent years have lost out to gig racing.

Once renowed for smuggling and fishing, Cawsand overlooks Plymouth Sound on the Rame peninsula. Rame Gig Club is still based there. South East Cornwall is an area often overlooked by tourists leading it to have become known as the forgotten corner. Cawsand and its twin village of Kingsand are popular with locals and walkers and are situated within the Mount Edgcumbe Country Park. Kingsand was in Devon until boundary changes in 1844 put the Devon-Cornwall border in the River Tamar. Cawsand has always been in Cornwall and in the summer a ferry service drops people off on the beach and its three pubs are often brimming with punters.