Ahoy...Anon

In the wacky non-mariner's race "sailors" ply the sea in "vessels" ranging from picnic tables on floats to a bus on oil drums.

By Paul McCoy and Stefan Walther

Get some guys together in a smoky bar and they're apt to argue about anything — even whether baby buggies will float.

Some years ago, the story goes, a handful of drinking buddies at The Horse and Buggy in Hamilton ended up debating the flotation properties of perambulators. A week later they launched a carriage from Albuoy's Point and tried to sail it across to Whites Island and back. The stroller sank — but Bermuda's one-of-a-kind Non-Mariners Race was born.

By the next year the event had drawn considerable interest from friends and neighbours, who came up with a multitude of similarly unsuitable vessels and incompetent crews. The motto of the non-mariners, as members of the new "society" called themselves: "The sea shall not have them. The sea does not want them."

The race grew in popularity but eventually was banished from Hamilton Harbour after the Royal Navy's entry — a bus floating on oil drums — sank in the main channel a few hours before a cruise ship was set to arrive. The non-mariners found a new home in Mangrove Bay, Somerset, where the Sandys Boat Club has hosted them for more than 20 years.

Every year on the Sunday following Cup Match, competitors craft some strange-looking contraptions and launch them in the bay. Many "non-entries" satirise local or international figures and events, and all have one thing in common: Each can be safely classified as a "non-craft." In recent years, tourists from the United States, Canada and other countries have "non-entered" the race alongside locals.

A non-entry may be powered by anything but paddles, oars, engines or sails. One memorable non-entry consisted of a picnic table and umbrella piled high with cold beer and paddled with tennis rackets.

Festivities are "non-officially non-opened" by the "non-Pipe and Drum Band." The pipe major flourishes a mop instead of a mace and heads up a motley collection of oddly attired musicians. "Non-tourists" and "non-locals" alike are "non-welcomed" to attend.

The Non-Mariners race is a celebration of silliness, but the event has raised considerable sums for charities throughout the years. If you are in Bermuda that first weekend in August, come down to Mangrove Bay and join in the fun of this light-hearted local tradition.

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