WITH fair winds and following seas so to speak, skipper Tricia Hales has plotted an enduring course for thousands of rafters paddling down the River Wye over the past 40 years.

The annual Hereford Raft Race is an institution, along the way many rafters going on to compete in other parts of the world. Tricia’s son Marc even represented Great Britain in Dragon boat racing at the Beijing Olympics. Aside from the fun and the skill, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been raised for charity.

After four decades, Tricia reckons it’s time to step down as chair of the organisation.

“Do you know that I’ve loved rafting!” says 66-year-old Tricia. “It makes my spine tingle just thinking about it!” Indeed, she is a great supporter of Hereford River Carnival too.

Four generations of her family remain active supporters of the raft race, and though she feels it’s time to hand over the paddles, she also admits to some mild pressure from grandchildren to at least keep a toe in the water.

The race was born out of a bet between two Herefordshire pubs in 1978. Tricia, who was at that time helping her husband run a building business, spotted a poster in her local, the Crown & Anchor at Lugwardine.

“My husband and his brothers built a raft with a coffin up the middle for their camping gear.” She recalled the spectacle of 11 crews with rafts built from an “ill-assorted selection” of materials. But her husband suffered a heart attack so their involvement that year was in providing back-up for what was a gruelling four-day race from Hay to Chepstow.

By the following year, women wanted more of the action. Tricia organised a 30-mile race from Hereford to Ross-on-Wye with overnight camping at Holme Lacy en route.

“It was sensational!” says Tricia.”It was a massive family event, children, husbands and parents cheering from the banks. It was phenomenal.”

Her team, Hare Razors (she owned a hairdressing business), came third and succeeded in raising £1,500 for charity. But that year there was some disquiet in the ranks about general organisation. Tricia nimbly stepped forward. While she got to work, some muttered darkly: ‘Tricia Hales thinks she can run it better, let her do it. It’ll probably last a year.’

“I didn’t know for 15 years about those comments!” she says.

This was a woman required to give orders on building sites while her husband was recovering from his heart attack, working up to her knees at 1am helping to lay foundations for Sainsbury’s new supermarket at Hereford.

“I love a challenge, I love organising events,” she says.

In its heyday the raft race drew 86 crews with back up teams supporting them over a three-day run, and up to 6,000 followers. “So, things had to be done properly,” says Tricia. “We were up against fishermen – we were the dregs of the earth to them – and the boats at Symonds Yat didn’t like us.

“I had to negotiate to put us in a good light.” With her good business sense, she drew up new schedules and rulings. “No rafts till 11am and off the water by 4pm.”She remembers attending a meeting of landowners, council officials and representatives of the navigation authority.

“There were 30 of them sitting round a table – and me!” With disarming honesty she opened the meeting: “I feel honoured I am the only one without a title; but I expect you’ll give me a few when I’ve left!”

It was relatively plain sailing after that, and she even ended up good friends with the Hereford Anglers.

Once, the Hare Razors shipped oars to rescue a calf in the river. A grateful farmer paid a reward of £10 for the charity coffers, and a picture of female crew and rescued heifer appeared in the Hereford Times. It was also pinned up at the Crown & Anchor bearing the caption: ‘Spot the Cow’.

Bringing in £100,000 a year for charity, she knew things had to be run properly. Money raised from Hereford crews went into the Hereford pot, and the Plynlimon Trust was set up. In 1986 the trust commissioned Harland and Wolff in Belfast to build a 70-foot narrowboat to take elderly or disabled people on holiday and Tricia took a two-years skippers’ course.

Nine mini-buses were acquired for the Dial-a-ride community transport service, a second-hand bookshop in Union Street with two flats above acquired to raise cash to run it. Meanwhile, Tricia persuaded a “wily” farmer to sell a riverside campsite he had rented out for some years.

Says Tricia: ““Not many Herefordians have not been touched by the raft race in some way. I

can’t express too much what a clean family sport this is, where babies and children come out with us, parents and grandparents too.

Her own special moment was when she recently sailed her raft beneath Victoria Bridge. “My son Marc was on the winning raft, my son Christopher on the river safety boat, my two eldest grandsons Billy and Edward on the raft with me and my 91-year-old parents waving from the bridge.

“That was magical for me.”