In the years before World War 2, Harwich was a regular venue for big yacht racing and the Big Class season would start with Harwich Regatta and work its way round the coast. Here ASTRA is rounding the mark in the 1934 Harwich Regatta.
ASTRA had been built in 1928 for Sir Mortimer Singer, the sewing machine millionaire. During 1931 she was bought by the Ipswich grain merchant Hugh Paul who, with Captain Edward Heard of Tollesbury as his skipper, and an Essex crew, raced her successfully the last flourish of big class racing. It was a scene which did not return after the War. ASTRA herself survived and was refitted in Italy in 1987.
Date: June 1934