Punt racing down the River Thames

Dominic Bliss under instruction from Peter Williams

Standing up in a small, flat-bottomed boat, I feel sure I’m going to topple into the river at any moment.I’m punting along the Thames, fully upright, with a 15ft aluminium pole for propulsion. This isn’t Oxford, and we are not sporting blazers or boaters. This is Thames Ditton, on the south-western edge of Greater London, where the river is still wide, deep and subject to the wake of passing traffic. Every boat that glides past increases the wobble of my punt and threatens to pitch me into the water.

I would already have been dunked at least once were it not for Peter Williams, instructor and member of Dittons Skiff & Punting Club (DSPC), who is accompanying me in the two-man punt. Coolly, he coaches me in the basic moves, while counter-balancing my nervous footwork with his own bodyweight.

The punting section of the club is dedicated to punt racing, a sport which pits single or double punts against each other in two-boat races along courses of 400 to 600 yards. It is much faster than recreational punting, although the two techniques are similar. Feet planted in the bottom of the boat, as if on a snowboard, you throw the pole vertically down into the water like a spear, hard enough for it to stick into the river bed. Moving your hands as high as possible up the pole, you then push down hard and shove backwards even harder, to propel the punt along. Just before the pole slips away from your hands, you perform the recovery stroke (known as “bucketing”), which involves pulling the now wet pole back towards you through your spare hand, and up again into the vertical position. “Strong hands as you’re pushing,” says Williams. “And light hands on the recovery.”

Success depends largely on the consistency of the river bottom. On this stretch, not far from Hampton Court, there is a bed of gravel laid about 40 years ago for the express use of punters. Over time, the wash from motor boats has churned it up, revealing mud and rocks beneath. Plant your punting pole too deep in soft mud and you risk leaving it behind as the punt surges forward. Stab a rock and it will bounce straight back up at you. Ideally, you want the crunch of gravel on every stroke. As Williams says with practised delivery: “Punters love a firm bottom.”

It is magical, this stretch of the Thames. On the south side, Thames Ditton’s pubs, private gardens and boat yards stretch down to the water’s edge. On the north side is the meandering Thames Path and Hampton Court.

Given the idyllic setting, it’s understandable that many of the club’s 300-odd members come here mostly to use the wooden rowing skiffs. Only 30 regularly venture out in the punts. National participation is equally limited: just five punt-racing clubs in all, every one on the Thames. Williams, who is also treasurer of the sport’s governing body, the Thames Punting Club, estimates there are fewer than 100 active racers in the UK. “It’s a struggle to keep the sport going.”

During the first half of the 20th century, punt racing enjoyed something of a golden age. Regattas used to attract dozens of clubs and thousands of spectators. There were even professionals who raced for money. After the second world war, as motorised boats became more popular, the number of punters quickly dwindled. Williams says there are probably hundreds of old racing punts rotting in boat sheds up and down the Thames.

Done properly, it’s a highly athletic sport. It takes strength and skill to manipulate the 28ft long, 2ft wide wooden punts with any efficacy. The contemporary fibre-glass versions, or “best boats”, as they’re known, are even trickier. Punters train hard to race in various regattas staged along the Thames. The annual highlight is the Thames Punting Championship, which celebrates its 125th anniversary next weekend at Maidenhead. The sport’s top punters will compete at speeds, according to Williams, of up to eight knots.

The most crucial element of every race is the turn, when punters reach the end of the course, marked by a wooden pole called a “ryepeck”. Instead of turning the boat around to complete a second length, they use their poles to stop dead, and then, turning themselves about face in the boat, they head back in the opposite direction, passing by the other side of the ryepeck.

“The ryepecks are just 8ft apart, the punts are each 2ft wide,” says Williams. “That leaves an operational error space of just 4ft. In the drama of the turn it’s easy for them to collide. You can cock it up, fall in, or make an idiot of yourself. The turn is where it’s easy to overtake your opponents.”

Bang on cue, one of Williams’ fellow members slams his punt bow-first into the ryepeck and stumbles over the edge into the river. Thigh-deep in the Thames, and cursing under his breath, he doesn’t look amused in the slightest.

Two other members, Mike Hart and Dominic Harlow, are out practising for a punting marathon later in the year. Their plan is to punt 124 miles non-stop from Lechlade-on-Thames, in Gloucestershire, to Teddington, on the edge of the capital. Hart won a silver medal in the double sculls rowing at the 1976 Olympics, and is the most proficient punter in the club, by quite a margin.

Williams points out his stocky frame in a punt on the opposite bank. In perfect rhythm he surges along, looking like a cross between a pole-vaulter and a cross-country skier. “If you ever share a two-man punt with him, you can feel the power when he gets going,” Williams says with pride.

Walkers on the bank point at the punters and shake their heads. Williams admits that he and his colleagues are considered rather strange. Rowers and sailors on this part of the Thames struggle to understand the sport. “Are we eccentric?” he asks. “I think mad is the best way to describe us.”

pursuits@ft.com

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The details

The Thames Punting Club regatta is on August 8 at Bray Reach, Maidenhead Dittons Skiff & Punting Club; www.dittons.org.uk