Chester Raft Race

It ticked all the required boxes didn’t it. Fabulous weather, inventive rafts, a great, appreciative crowd and brilliant atmosphere. Quickly following on from last week’s Chester Live Street Festival event, yesterday saw the annual Chester Rotary Club, Charity Raft Race. Without a doubt the Chester Raft Race is a hugely popular event. In fact, some may say that it is the premier event to be held on the River Dee.

Chester Raft Race

Chester Raft Race

The ideal scene was set of course when we all woke up to even more stunning weather. A walk down to The Groves for the 10:15am start was in itself a pleasant stroll through town.

The atmosphere that greeted us when we arrived at the riverside was very much in holiday party mode. I’m not sure how many people were there, but it must have been a few thousand.

As always the rafts taking part were inventive and, in some cases very topical. Who saw the raft with Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un navigating their way down the River Dee. Somebody said they were in fact only face masks. I’m not having that. I’m more of the opinion that the Chester Raft Race is that popular, even renowned world leaders would want to take part.

There was also a raft with several horse jockeys aboard. Were these taking part in the Raft Race, or were they still to finish their horse race from the day before?

Chester Rotary Club

The Chester Raft Race is, of course, organised by the Rotary Club of Chester. The idea behind the race is that rafts race against each other, and the clock, over a distance of about 400 metres. The course starts just upriver of the Royal Chester Rowing Club. From there the route then passes under the pedestrian Suspension Bridge (how many were on the bridge by the way!!) to a finish on the north bank of the river by Recorder’s Steps to the Walls and just above the weir. At this point the race is actually over, but the rafts then have to double back and retrace their route back to the starting point on the Meadows.

As with last year’s race, the event also featured UK Fly-board Champion Jay St John. Jay enthralled the masses with a brilliant display of fly-boarding. He also took any opportunity to spray any rafts that came within a few yards range of his spectacular exploits.

No doubt a great day and great fun had by all that took part. A brilliant occasion for all spectators as well.

Let’s not forget the real winners in this event though. Money was raised for the extremely worthy Countess of Chester Babygrow Appeal. Well done to all the volunteers who took the time and effort to collect contributions for this worthy cause.

If you want to find out more information of the Babygrow Appeal you can take a look HERE.

Regarding the event itself, you can read more about the Chester Raft Race on their official website HERE.

While I was down there I took a few photos and videos. You can see a short video of the occasion below…..

For More Information on Chester and Chester Lifestyle

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Always plenty of things to do in Chester. For a few ideas take a look at this page HERE.