World's Strangest Sailing Event

by Lisa Mylchreest on 11 Aug 2006 One of the strangest annual sailing races in the world will take place again next month. Strange, because there’s no water for over 1000 kilometres – even stranger than Switzerland winning the America’s Cup!

It’s called the Henley-on-Todd. Well, I hear you say, that sounds like a river, so how come there’s no water?

Because the Henley-on-Todd is situated almost in the exact centre of Australia, and when the Henley-on-Todd flows, it makes the local newspapers across Australia.

But that doesn’t stop the annual Henley-on-Todd Sailing race one little bit. In fact it appears to be the sort of event that can motivate the most mature, conservative business people into the roles of 'Vikings' and 'Pirates' crewing battle boats bristling with mortars and high pressure water cannons.

Sound strange yet? According to veteran Reg Smith, it all started in 1962, when he and his compatriots at the Alice Springs Meteorological Bureau proposed they hold an actual regatta along the lines of the famous Henley-on-Thames, a race between Cambridge and Oxford Universities. The idea was taken up by the Rotary club of Alice Springs, and the fact that the town was 1,500 km's from the nearest large body of water was never seen as a problem.

In Reg's memory, a race has been dedicated in his honour with the idea that each year a different charity will receive 10% of all profits raised from the Henley-On-Todd event.

Watching seemingly sane people race in bottomless 'eights', 'oxford tubs', 'bath tubs' and yachts through the deep coarse sand of the Todd River provides an unique spectacle amongst world sporting events. The multi-event program attracts many local and international participants from the audience who often finish up on world TV news paddling canoes with sand shovels and in 'land lubber' events like filling empty 44 gallon drums with sand.

The ASSA ABLOY Henley-On-Todd will this year be run on 16th September, and is run entirely on a volunteer basis by the three Rotary Clubs based in the Alice. The entire proceeds - well over a million dollars raised over the years - allocated to local, national and international humanitarian projects.