These gorgeous things are flashboats (not mine!) I photographed them at Calstock Regatta. There is absolutely zero reason to have a flashboat. They are wooden, which is a hopelessly impractical material compared with modern plastics, aluminium or fibreglass: it is heavy, it goes rotten, it’s a pain to repair. And flashboats are a particularly ridiculous form of wooden boat: they are descended from the practical working river-boats and gigs of centuries past, but they are streamlined and much less stable, because they are built for racing. Nobody has wooden working-boats now, working-boats are light practical aluminium. Except, a plastic or aluminium boat would be faster to race in too. LOOK AT THEM. My god they are gorgeous. Nobody try to tell me that Olwe doesn’t have a flashboat. The Teleri probably practice gig-racing too: it’s exactly the sort of of ridiculous water-borne art that they would love. ‘We want to go really really fast, only, and this is important, without compromising our aesthetic.’