New (to us) Committee Boat

Those of you that have been to the club recently will have seen we have taken delivery of ‘Rose’ to replace our old committee boat, which was unfortunately badly damaged by a summer storm. A few facts about Rose – she is an Orkney Pilot House 20, coming in at 20ft long compared to the old boat at 21ft, the same 2.4 meters wide (but with less side tanking the working area feels more spacious) and importantly much lighter at a mere 925kg against the old boat’s hefty 1350kg, meaning she will sit less heavily on the mooring and carry less momentum when manoeuvring.

We plan to fit her out with one of our stock engines and, while she is not yet quite fully functioning, club Bosun John Rogers and a small team of helpers were able to get her race ready so she could pressed into service for the recent Flying Fifteen inlands.

Regards the mooring, plans are afoot to arrange a dive to restore the previous, broken mooring later this year, in addition to which Bristol Water have also now agreed to a more sheltered mooring being sited off the north shore in the lee of Denny Island, which will be for occasional use in advance of any approaching southerly storms.

Annual Celebration Dinner Saturday 07-Oct-23

Don’t forget to book your tickets and order your food for our Annual Celebration Diner – simply click here, or scan the QR code on the poster below

Bart’s Bash – Sunday 17-Sep-23

This year’s Bart’s Bash race takes place on Sunday 17-Sep-23. Bart’s Bash is a single race where all results are combined together with everyone taking part globally.

It’s intended to be accessible for all and is especially suitable for those less confident on a race course, so whatever your level of experience come and participate in the biggest and most social race worldwide! If ever is the time then it is Bart’s Bash!

Race Officer John Smalley will explain all in his usual clear and jovial manner on the morning of the race.

DON’T FORGET TO REGISTER IN ADVANCE

A request to our members. To allow results to be combined globally we have to precisely measure our course. Unfortunately our usual sources are unavailable, so if you have a suitable handheld GPS device we could use to pinpoint our mark locations on the 17-Sep-23 it would be hugely appreciated! If so, please do send me an email at sailing@chewvalleysailing.org.uk.

Family Fun Day

You may have seen in the calendar that Bart’s Bash is shared with Family Fun Day. Unfortunately the usual band of volunteers are away that weekend so we’re looking for a handful of people to co-ordinate a couple of on-the-water activities. It won’t involve getting wet, I promise!

If you’re willing and able to give out some instructions and operate a stopwatch then please do get in touch (sailing@chewvalleysailing.org.uk)! Otherwise the Family Fun Day will be back next year

RYA Level 3 (Better Sailing) course

The training team is planning to offer an RYA Level 3(Better Sailing) course in late September-October.

Attending this course will enable competent Level 2 sailors (either qualified or with equivalent practical experience) to improve their sailing by consolidating their current skills and trying new ones in a variety of conditions.

The course covers setting sail shape controls for different weather and water states, sailing more efficiently by better control of the five essentials, use of tell tales, more in-depth meteorology, and some tasters of the RYA advanced modules such as racing, use of spinnakers and day sailing. On completion of the course sailors will be more confident in sailing skills and techniques, and better set to decide how and when to progress onto their choice of the RYA’s advanced training modules.
This isn’t a course for newly-qualified Level 2 sailors keen to collect badges. To get the most from the course, sailors really need to have at least one full season of sailing behind them.

The course can be completed in 2 days in ideal conditions, but we will schedule the course over 2 weekends to allow for some flexibility- 30 Sept/1 Oct, and 14/15 Oct as reserve days. The cost will be £175 and up to 4 places will be opened up for booking shortly on Webcollect.

If you are interested, let me know and I can email/text you when the course is opened on Webcollect.
Dave Orme, RYA Principal, training.cvlsc@gmail.com

Lunch on the Lake

Weather permitting, Lunch on the Lake returns on Saturday 09-Sep-23. If you are new to the club and are interested in dinghy cruising then these are a great way to get involved and practice some useful dinghy cruising skills as well as get valuable tips and advice from others on boat set-up and sailing locations. Otherwise it is all about having a lazy lunch onboard your own boat at anchor ( or someone else’s, if you are crew ).

Dinghy Cruising -Brownsea Island

Taking advantage of a warm sunny, if not a tad breezy day, a few CVLSC members and two boats headed for Poole Harbour to sail the RYA’s Brownsea Island dinghy trail. Not a particularly difficult sail but ideal for pilotage planning practice given the shallow waters outside of the buoyed channels. A late afternoon high tide allowed a lazy start to the day and 4 hours on the water in a great location. The beach dunes and heathers off Redhorn Lake gave us respite from the stiff breeze before heading back past Brownsea Castle to Baiter Park where we launched and recovered our boats. Graham Burgess and his home-built 17’ Whitehall, Ondine, accompanied Phil Pemberton and Simon Conway in Simon’s GP14 (Skismo).

Poole Harbour is a great testing ground for dinghy cruising offering plenty of places to beach, shelter and explore. Only a few hour’s drive from CVLSC it is accessible and convenient.

Almost free to good home!

A member of Neyland YC is seeking help to find a new home for his 1961/2 Lawrence & Plater boat (GP14). They were very prestigious builders at that time and these boats are historically interesting.
She needs to go to someone who is able to restore her and get her back on the water.

The owner doesn’t want any payment for themselves, but a donation to the NYC Junior Sailing Section would be appreciated. Most important is to get the boat being used again and not end up rotting away in a corner somewhere.

If you are interested please contact Simon Conway for more details s1m0njc@icloud.com

Member Travels

As would be expected for mid summer, there has been plenty of travelling in the last month:

  • As promised in last month’s newletter, the report from the Mirror Worlds at Sligo in Ireland has been published, once again a fantastic 6th overall for Adam and Bella Broughton. Alice Semenenko also sailed to 3rd in the Silver fleet at Abersoch Mirror Week.
  • From the ILCA fleet, Ed Baker was a brilliant 2nd at the Welsh National Championships at Dale YC and there was plenty of representation at the Nationals at Hayling, with Christi Brasher in the ILCA4 fleet and Oliver Allen-Wilcox, Ed Baker and Peter Sherwin all competing in the ILCA7 fleet.
  • Callum Farnden steered a Firefly at their Nationals at Felixstowe Ferry the week after crewing at the RS200 Nationals at North Berwick to finish an amazing 7th overall, including a win in race 7. Ed Harris also sailed a consistent event at the RS200’s to finish 55th.
  • Chew was represented in 4 boats at the Scorpion Nationals at Eastbourne, with Ian Cadwallader and Ellie Devereaux best placed in 11th, joined by John Rose (crewing for Peter Rose), Malcolm James and David Bennett (crewing for Cheryl Wood).
  • Alex Knight and James Clark (pictured below) sailed at the I14 POW week at Itchenor SC, with a number of top 10 results giving them 5th overall, including 6th in the prestigious long-distance POW cup race. Rob Higgins also competed with RS700 sailor Theo Gayler.
  • Finally, Yvonne Smith and Martyn Stubbs sailed to 10th overall at the Goodacre Cup at Roadford Lake over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Andy Jones
Commodore