Races
There are multiple races that take place over the weekend, of varying distance, all starting on the Friday night. The ladies and men's veterans races take place on Friday evening, with the main event happening on Saturday and Sunday, with a sailing race on the Monday.
St Agnes
The longest race is from the island of St.Agnes down to the finish line just off the quay of St. Mary's. Both veterans races follow this course to decide the winner of the trophy for these categories.
On the Saturday the men and women race separately, with a full line up of gigs, in 2009 119 gigs were on the start line, and the finishing positions of this race determine the seedings for the subsequent heats.
Nut Rock
Each gig is seeded based on the St.Agnes race and the heats are split into groups of 12 for the race from Nut Rock, back to St. Mary's. Two heats are held, one on Saturday and one of Sunday, with the top two gigs being promoted and the bottom two relegated.
The finals for both the men and ladies take place on the Sunday afternoon, again racing the same course. Each group then has a winner, and the outcome of group A decides who is the overall champions.
Read more about this topic: World Pilot Gig Championships
Famous quotes containing the word races:
“Arrive at New Orleans, a city of ships, steamers, flatboats, rafts, mud, fog, filth, stench, and a mixture of races and tongues. Cholera, “some.” [At] Planters’ Hotel. Mem:—Never get caught in a cheap tavern in a strange city.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“This Administration has declared unconditional war on poverty and I have come here this morning to ask all of you to enlist as volunteers. Members of all parties are welcome to our tent. Members of all races ought to be there. Members of all religions should come and help us now to strike the hammer of truth against the anvil of public opinion again and again until the ears of this Nation are open, until the hearts of this Nation are touched, and until the conscience of America is awakened.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)