H. E. Twaits

Horace Ernest Twaits served with the Royal Flying Corps (later Royal Air Force) in World War I and was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in 1918. During the 1930s he worked at a bank in Dover, where he was also active in the Local History Exhibition and the Dover Cricket Club. He then left the city and, in 1939, served again as a flight officer for about one year. Subsequently, Twaits tried several times unsuccessfully to be commissioned as a war artist.

His best-known work was a painting of Felixstowe Ferry which was displayed in the Felixstowe Museum. The races mentioned in the title of the work are probably the sailing regattas in Burnham-on-Crouch that have been held since 1893. The International One Design (IOD) is a class of sailing boats that was developed for regattas in 1936.