You may well be asking yourself what is this all about, well read on. The Club Council is aware that Club Members are regularly invaded by visiting fleets who want to host events at our beautiful Sailing Club. This brings a lot of benefits but also requires a great commitment from members and can restrict our own racing. A decision was made to hold a weekend for members when Camping and Caravanning would be available and was a bit of a deviation from our usual Racing Programme with the emphasis on “FUN”.
Those who were present for the Queens Diamond Jubilee Weekend in 2012 will remember the Topper Events we had which involved a Le Mans style running start, followed by a team race with helms changing over at the end of the jetty. As well as being great fun for competitors, it provided fantastic entertainment for those on shore, needless to say it was chaotic. As part of the fun weekend, on Saturday we intend to have a rerun of this event in the Club Toppers, together with more conventional Team Racing. This will be followed by a rounders match between teams captained by the Commodore and Vice Commodore, Tug of War, Games Night and a BBQ.
On Sunday we will be holding a more conventional race for all members in whatever boat you choose. This race will be run on Fleet Handicap in memory of Pete Ballard who sadly passed away earlier this year. Pete as well as being our Safety Officer was extremely active in all aspect of the running of the Club, always willing to help out whether it be felling trees and other ground works, training, teaching members children to climb trees safely and a whole host of other things. Pete also played a leading part in the Topper event, capsizing other teams boats, removing and even breaking rudders as well as editing the video which was taken of the chaos and is available on the website. A small contribution will be requested from all competitors which will be donated to the Samaritans, a charity Pete was actively involved with.
The programme for the weekend will be flexible, dependent upon weather conditions, but I would encourage all members to come along and take part. The emphasis is on getting together as members and enjoying ourselves. I would particularly like to see our Thursday Night Sailors who make the Night Jar so successful coming along, we have had 45 different boats racing so far which is fantastic.
Come and join in and have some “FUN”
Jon Denwood
Sailing Secretary