A senseless threat to the University Boat Race

SIR – Why is the Port of London Authority trying ruin the spectacle of the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race? It has declared that, to avoid the risk of fire, the petrol engines of the vintage support craft must be replaced with diesel ones (report, March 22).

I am a volunteer at the Thames Traditional Boat Festival, held every year at Henley-on-Thames. Most of the powered craft use petrol engines, and this is the reason for their uniqueness.

All powered craft on British waterways have to comply with strict safety standards. Craft such as the vintage Umpire and Slipper launches, which follow the Boat Race, are already complying with these.

The PLA should reconsider. Vintage boating on the Thames is more than sufficiently regulated already. Lyndon Yorke High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire SIR – As far as I am aware, the only “death” that has arisen directly from the University Boat Race was the dead heat in 1877.

However, the race is now under threat from the PLA’s new regulation. This, mind you, at a time when the Government – having spent years persuading motorists to switch from petrol to diesel – has done a U-turn and is now proposing to penalise those who use dieselpowered vehicles because they cause more pollution.

The Boat Race has been held every year (except for during the two world wars) since 1829, without serious incident.

The present situation is just another example of health and safety being taken to ludicrous extremes. Robert Readman Bournemouth, Dorset