THIS week in Down Memory Lane I am reminded of the tall ship festival currently on in Greenwich, London, as I watched some passing under sail off Coalhouse Point last week.

The racing of tall ships, yachts and Thames Barges on the river occured at various times and was spectacular to see.

Grays was once the home of the Thames barge building at Goldsmith’s yard and many local companies operated there, delivering cargos of coal, malt, bricks, gravel and clay, with return trips from London carrying free manure for local farmers to dig in to the light gravel soils of Thurrock.

In June 1866, the Royal London Yacht Club Cutter match took place and the event was recorded in the London Illustrated News with an engraving of the race off Coalhouse Point showing the three leaders, Niobe, Sphinx and Vindex followed by a paddle steamer with spectators and umpires.

The club was founded in London in 1838, with its first meeting at the Coal Hole Tavern, in Fountain Court on the Strand, where it got its Royal Warrant from the dowager Queen Adelaide in 1849.

In its early days it fostered racing innovations and was instrumental in establishing a universal set of rules and system of measurement.

The Great Tea Race was an unofficial competition between the fastest clipper ships of the China tea trade to bring the season’s first crop of tea to London.

The winning vessel was awarded an extra pound sterling for every tonne of freight delivered, and the captain of the winning tea clipper was given a percentage of the ship’s earnings.

The race took 102 days to complete. Three clippers docked in London within a short time of each other, the Taeping, however, reached Gravesend first, with the Ariel at close by and the Serica was still a close third.

The Daily Mail recorded that “Taeping has thus secured the prize, which is an extra freight of 10 shillings a ton on her cargo of tea”.