What is Gig Racing?

---12.14.1999---

Let me tell you about gig racing, a sport that’s been going for some 200 years or so. Gigs are six-man rowboats 30' long and barely wide enough for two. They were originally used to ferry pilots out to passing ships which the pilots would then guide into ports as far away as London or Hamburg. Good work, if you could get it. The pilots that had the fastest gig crews were able to get aboard first and get the jobs.

Phillip reckons that if the seas were rough and there were an emergency, the men here would trust their gigs before they would any other boat. I haven’t confirmed this yet but it a point to ponder. Regardless, the competition between all of the islands’ gig teams seems as intense as it’s ever been. The men on Scilly have rowed for generations and virtually every man on St. Agnes has done it in one boat: the Shah.

Beautiful and highly revered, the Shah was first built in 1873. A rowing seat on the Shah is a privilege and rite of passage. She came back the other day from a major overhaul, something that’s needed every 25 years or so. Andrew Henn’s father, a shipwright in Cornwall, did the work. The boat’s return to the island was a major event and one that I missed because I overslept.

You see Phillip is a primarily nocturnal creature. He goes to bed around four or five in the morning and sleeps until three in the afternoon, about an hour and a half before the sun goes down. His schedule seems to have a certain gravity to it. I found myself staying up later and later. Anyway, that morning I missed the arrival of the Shah. Not to go on and on about boats but she did look gorgeous with her fresh, blue gunnels and topsides, and white bottom paint.

She’s ready for a new season in which she’ll compete against the other islands’ boats and crews. A total of six boats typically compete in the inter-island races. They row surrounded by every other passenger launch and private boat in the Scillies, forming a huge, cheering flotilla, urging them on.