The "rabelo" boats race

[goncalo devesas]

Every years in the St. John day (June 24th), all the Portwine cellars, went in a race with the old "rabelo" boats (presidents and directors of each cellar also made part of the crew), that were the old transportation for the portwine barrels, from the Douro Valley untill Vila Nova de Gaia,
They were replaced by train and cistern trucks in May 1971, now we can see the old "rabelo" boat in the Douro river only for decor.
The race started in Foz and the finish was in Ribeira, in front of the Portwine cellars, the rough edges of the Douro river were crowded, thousands of people.
This year the champion is DOW´S, nice race !!!

CONGRATULATIONS !!

[Andy Velebil]

It was a fun race, although I only saw it from the balcony at the Graham's Lodge with your brother Gustavo. We were in the middle of one of the largest single tastings I've ever done in Portugal, 36 bottles Needless to say we didn't finish the tasting until very late in the evening and missed seeing the Regata at the river front. But it was fun to watch the race from afar while tasting all of the Symington's 1970, 2007, and 2007 VP component samples on the balcony. A great job to the Dow's crew.

Kopke was holding second for a while then they got a little off course and not sure how they finished overall. Taylor and Fonseca had a bit of a rough going and were the last two boats to finish.

[Roy Hersh]

Back in 2003, I had the good fortune of having George Sandeman invite me to go on board his Barco during the race and invited my wife and daughter too. They decided to "pass" up the offer as it was raining early in the day. By the time it began it was literally pouring as hard as it had in decades during the race and although there was an unofficial finish, the official results did not count as the race was called due to the storm. I can't begin to say how insane it was even though we were given heavy slickers with hoods, but it was coming down in buckets. However, the bottles on board were flowing as mighty as the river itself. An amazing experience regardless of the rain. Heck, I live in Seattle ... so what the heck is a little rain?

I must say that the very best part, was the after race party back at the Lodge. But I am not permitted to talk about that.

[guilherme]

Now that Pink Port is legal,
why not a pink Rabelo sailing next year ?

Guilherme

[Derek T.]

Needless to say we didn't finish the tasting until very late in the evening and missed seeing the Regata at the river front. But it was fun to watch the race from afar while tasting all of the Symington's 1970, 2007, and 2007 VP component samples on the balcony. A great job to the Dow's crew.

I do believe we toasted the victory with a rather splendid glass of Dow 1970

A fabulous day and it was great to see the boats on the river from the Graham's lodge. Well done to the Dow's crew! (sorry, Dominic, I know we promised to support Warre )

Derek

[Al B.]

It was funny, but everyone I met that day claimed to have won the race. When I asked "How did you get on?" the answer, without fail, was "We finished first and the one / two / three / etc. boats in front should all have been disqualified for cheating."

It did make me smile and shows the true spirit in which these races are held.

[Tom Archer]

For the Symington camp around us, I sensed that the winning was not that important..

..it was who came last that really made the day..!

And yes, that was one hell of a tasting session...

Tom