St Ives Raft Race |16 August 2019
The Raft Race is an annual fundraising event hosted by St Ives Pilot Gig Club. This year the race will be taking place on Friday 16th August and if you're staying in one of our luxury cottages in St Ives it is not to be missed!
Find a good spot by the harbour railings and settle in for the show as watch as friends, family and colleagues don fancy dress, put their homemade rafts to water and discover whether their hard grafting has been enough to carry them safely around the harbour to both piers and back. Many will have dreams of winning but in our experience, building something that is sufficiently bouyant is an achievement in itself!
Fancy dress & flour bombs
If the thrashing of costume clad contestants trying to keep their raft afloat isn't enough entertainment for a Friday evening, St Ives Gig members will be selling flour bombs to add to the carnage. Don't be afraid to get stuck in and launch them at participants! A team's fancy dress will often be keeping with the theme of their raft, however there is one element each team will have in common, and that's a mermaid.
Mermaids in distress
The stranded mermaids await rescue together as their fellow teammates paddle furiously to get to them, only once they have picked up their mermaid can the whole team make their way back to the slipway to be in with a chance of winning: this year certificates will be awarded for:
• 1st, 2nd and 3rd raft home
• Best fancy dress
• Most beautiful mermaid
All money raised by the event goes toward St Ives Pilot Gig Club to help maintain the traditional Pilot gigs and or to help purchase new equipment, at present, they're raising money to purchase two new sets of racing paddles.
The harbour front is just a couple of minutes' walk from the Sail Lofts luxury cottage in St Ives, if you don't quite feel like getting in amongst it, it's a great evening to book a table at one of the many restaurants along the Wharf. From there you'll have a great view of the fun without the threat of a rogue flour bomb flying your way.
