IOW Surf Club wins the Annual Ventnor to Sandown Cracker Race – by Tony Macpherson

This race took place in the early 80’s. We had a surf club meeting in the Castle Inn in Newport and this peculiar race was mentioned. It got everyone interested and we decided to enter.

IOW Surf Club_Cracker Race 1983 (County Press Photo)

I offered to build the cracker and others were happy to do the run.

The rules required a cracker which was 12ft long by 3ft diameter. It had to be decorated and six runners had to complete the course with it in fancy dress. The race was from Botanical gardens in Ventnor to Sandown pier.

IOW Surf Club_Cracker Race_1 (County Press Photo)

Annie and I worked on the cracker, it had a 6 inch x 12ft plastic water pipe as the backbone, courtesy of Southern water, six carrying handles, two telescopic handles front and back for passing through narrow spaces and several hula hoops as the frame. Annie and I covered and decorated it ready for the run.

On the day the surf club ran superbly and won, we also won best decorated cracker. My memory is not so good on the next details but I think we won the following year as well.

IOW Surf Club_Cracker Race_2 (County Press Photo)

Dave Jacobs, Simon Richardson, Mike Smith, Neal Smith, Dave Downer and Colin Graham

In the third year we failed to win as some teams broke the rules and used collapsible crackers which could easily pass through the narrow spaces along the course. Not sure what happened to the race after that.

The runners were Dave Jacobs, Mike Smith, Colin Graham, Dave Downer, Neil Smith and Simon Richardson.