Downstream

‘so inconveniently crowded
with steam launches, house
boats, skiffs, gigs, punts,
dinghys, canoes and every
other conceivable and
inconceivable variety of craft,
that the racing boats have
sometimes the greatest
difficulty in threading a way
through the crowd’. The
regatta was heavily dependent
on the weather, however, and
in 1869 the Illustrated
London News reported that