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A few of the gigs waiting on Carbis Bay
beach at
The St Ives Gig Club Regatta on Saturday 7th July 2007
The first gigs dated
from 1790, and were built to take the "pilot" out to the sailing ships
waiting off the many harbours around Cornwall. It was very important for
the gig to be fast, as the first gig to reach the ship received the
money for the job. In later years, the gigs were used for smuggling and
as lifeboats due to their speed and seaworthiness. When a new gig
arrived the only way to test its performance, was to race it against its
opposition. From there it was only logical for the best gig from each
port, cove or island to race each other and gig racing at regattas
began.
A gig is made from
Cornish Elm, and is 32 foot long and 4 foot 3 in across its beam. It has
8 thwarts (seats), one for the coxswain, six for the rowers and the
"seagull" seat in the bow. The rowers sit alternately along the boat,
three on the stroke side and three on the bow side. All gigs are built
to the same specification and each new boat is carefully monitored
during its construction by the Cornish Gig Association's nominated
inspectors, based on the measurements of the "Treffry", built by Peters
of St. Mawes in 1838.
Below are a few
pictures of individual gigs on Saturday, taken from a sailing boat so
that we could get close up to the action. We did try to take pictures of
all the gigs racing, however with a lot of gigs heading straight for us
we decided that we didn't want to get in the way, so made a hasty
retreat while the wind allowed us to.
Pictures by Derek Hall (from Lanhams) taken from the sailing dinghy 'Red Oktober'
which can be seen in previous Picture of the Month Archives.
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