Stratford Boat Club's Audrey gets a retirement home next to the River Avon
AUDREY is 40 to 50 years old, measures ten metres, has links to the 2012 London Olympics and celebrated her retirement with a top of the table performance at The Boat House by the River Avon last Friday.
Named after Audrey in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the elegant looking double sculling boat belonging to Stratford-upon-Avon Boat Club, has been decommissioned and given to The Boat House riverside bistro and bar where she now resides in the rafters above the dining tables.
Among those boat club members who would have sculled in Audrey are Olympic Gold medallist, James Roe, from Stratford who celebrated his fine winning performance with an open top bus tour of the town centre in 2012 and Esme Booth a 2022 European Rowing Championships medallist.
Audrey is actually 9.9m long and was built by George Sims, the boatbuilder famed for fine wooden double sculling boats and unlike the modern-day boats made of carbon fibre, Audrey is a mixture of woods - some Elm – bonded within a veneer shell but on race day she could reach speeds of 15 mph.
During his 12 years as the boat club’s maintenance man, Phil Marshall has repaired and patched up Audrey on several occasions but in the end she became “uneconomical to repair” he said.
He is assisted in his maintenance work of the boat club’s fleet by fellow volunteer, Robert House, who has been looking after the boats for five years.
Boat club committee member, Chris Best said: “We’ve researched Audrey’s character in Shakespeare and she’s described as a ‘country bumpkin-ette looking for love. When she’s not busy herding goats, she’s getting cozy with Touchstone.’ Our boats have female names usually with a connection with Shakespeare’s plays. Audrey will be moved to take up residence at the nearby Boat House.”
Finally, the time came on a chilly Friday morning by the Avon for Phil and Robert, to carry Audrey the short distance from the boat club to The Boat House which isn’t as simple as it sounds due to her long wooden frame and a Tramway Bridge with people walking on it.
The next chapter from this adventure was pure Shakespeare, for when Audrey arrived at her destination she was hoisted into position and manoeuvred through a balcony window - it just had to be that scene from Romeo and Juliet whichever row you chose to view it from.
Waiting to receive the precious addition was The Boathouse general manager, Mat Faulkner, and his team of chefs who gently drew her into the warmth of the dining and bar area for the final and most challenging part of this demanding and physical operation which literally required all hands-on deck – well, sort of.
There were several anxious moments when the final lift of Audrey through a series of A-framed rafters inside the historic building of the boathouse took place – all involved making sure her rigid frame didn’t clatter against a host of chandeliers hanging nearby.
At times the dynamic of the installation was a positive process only for everything to stop in mid-air by a lack of progress – Audrey was not moving as expected, in fact she wasn’t moving into position at all – she appeared stuck.
That was until Herald photographer – Mark Williamson - called upon his family’s engineering history in shipbuilding on Tyneside and
suggested an alternative way to lift Audrey in place and little by little she was threaded into position with inches to spare.
It was a eureka moment prompting Mat Faulkner to say: “It looks perfect.”
Reflecting on Friday morning’s major effort when the tide was finally turned, Chris Best told the Herald: “We knew a lot of activity would be involved but in the end it actually was not a problem.”
Audrey is resting in the rafters now. She has a prime position in The Boat House overlooking the River Avon where once she crossed the finish line not far away in so many Stratford-upon-Avon Boat Club regattas.
