Falmouth Week success (From Boating Cornwall)

Falmouth Week success

9:23am Friday 24th August 2007

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The Henri-Lloyd Falmouth Week 2007 is being heralded a great success all round despite some criticisms over the location at the Princess Pavilion of most of the shoreside evening entertainment.

The sailing provided yet another year of thrills and spills, and many new activities ashore provided even more choice and opportunities for people to get involved with the fun of the week, said Sian Robbins for Carrick council.

On the water the number of race entries was high, despite a poor summer, with nearly 300 yachts competing for honours and sponsored prizes.

The 25 different classes included all types of craft, ancient and modern, from state of the art offshore yachts and dinghies to classic and traditional designs such as the Falmouth Sunbeams and St Mawes One Design classes.

For many competition was fierce, but there is always room for the family or friends who come along mostly for the fun of it. This year there were even special white sails' classes for those without spinnakers, she said.

Falmouth Classics started off the week in glorious sunshine, providing a spectacular sight around the Carrick Roads.

The atmosphere amongst the sailors was lively all week as crews and helms found themselves thoroughly tested in virtually all conditions, she said. The live film and tracking of the boats by Race Trax was beamed ashore to Events Square and that proved successful.

The eight nights of live music at the Princess Pavilion were a great success with four complete sell-outs and a great standard of entertainment all week long including Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Seth Lakeman, The Damned and The Blockheads, said Miss Robbins, The Pavilion was delighted to welcome well over 4,000 people to enjoy the fun, including many families for the garden party on Thursday afternoon.

A number of people did criticise the moving of the shoreside entertainment to the Pavilion but organisers insist this was the right move in order to bring back the family feeling to the week and to use the events square in other ways.

Alan Horne, managing director of Carrick Leisure who manage the Princess Pavilion, said there had been support for the move and with the less than perfect weather the management was able to run the whole programme without a problem. "We hope everyone enjoyed the week as we tried to include something for everyone, and we look forward to working with the organisers to make it even bigger and better next year. Our staff more than rose to the challenge and I would like to thank everyone involved in making this flagship week a success for our town."

Activities at Events Square were centred around family entertainment with Swamp Circus, Punch and Judy and live music throughout the day enhanced the café culture atmosphere on the Square.

David Lang, Falmouth town centre manager said in his opinion the whole week was a huge success .Dates for Henri-Lloyd Falmouth Week 2008 are August 9 to 16.

What did you think of Falmouth Week? Comment below.

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