Watch live video from the race tomorrow!
This quirky race in June is when the modern working fleet lets its hair down. Skippers dress the boats with bunting and battle it out on a two-lap course around Tor Bay. This year’s Brixham Trawler Race takes place on Saturday 21 June 2014, 10am – 4pm
The winner is not always the first across the line as there is a very strict handicapping system. Old trawlers still exist in Brixham, which has a “Heritage Pontoon” at King’s Quay, against which are moored six locally built, veteran sailing smacks, available to charter.
Many locals are involved in Sea Week, an event in June centred on All Saint’s Church, famous as the church of the Rev Henry Francis Lyte, who resided at Berry Head House. It was here in 1847 that he penned “Abide with me” while he lay dying of tuberculosis.
Thirty-six boats were involved in the 2010 Brixham Trawler Race and carried over 1,150 passengers around the triangular course across Tor Bay.
The local boats were joined by two Dutch fishing vessels — the Cornelis Senior, a trawler which operates out of Holland in the North Sea, and Hibernia, a mussel dredger which fishes in the Irish Sea.
The two ships entered the popular Brixham Trawler Race thanks to Brixham’s long-standing connection with the Maaskant shipyard in Holland.
