From 13.00 UK time today, Lowestoft was a seething inferno of several hundred thousand people, with all the fun of the fair on the ground and Britain’s largest air show in the air.
Located at the centre of the events, the Sea Stallion is for the seventh day still in the marina belonging to the old and very distinguished Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club. The Viking Ship Museum’s floating pride is still waiting for the wind to turn so the experimental voyage can reach its goal in Roskilde on 9 August.
For some hours, however, the now rather impatient crew had a great diversion together with Mr & Mrs England and their children. They were combining a lovely day at the beach with aerial acrobatics and fighter planes in dizzying loops and free falls, rescue exercises with the British air-sea rescue service picking up a man from the water and landing rescuers on to a boat. There were also a lot of veteran aircraft, large aircraft, small aircraft, and even smaller helicopters. Most of them gave displays of hazardous manoeuvres, filling the air space over Lowestoft’s expansive beaches for whole of the afternoon. The show was closed by the world-renowned Red Arrows from the Royal Air Force, who did things with their aircraft that were almost against the laws of nature – including a series of simulated dogfights.
Lowestoft Seafront Air Festival, described by local taxi drivers at least as Britain’s largest with 500,000 spectators, is arranged by a local organisation of volunteers and the local council. Judging by the mass of people on the beach, the taxi drivers are probably right. The aerial acrobatics continue tomorrow and the festival is an important economic boost for the town. It was formerly an important town with a very large North Sea fishing fleet. But just like their Danish colleagues, they have had to cut back to almost nothing, so fishing has virtually disappeared here as well.
Today, Lowestoft focuses sharply on developing summer tourism and the town has kilometre-long stretches of broad, white sandy beach, both north and south of the harbour. Lowestoft has lots of accommodation. ‘B & B’ notices abound on the bungalows and terraced houses along the shore.
