In 2023 WSC celebrates its 110th anniversary, and with a cracking season behind us in 2022, there’s nothing to stop us getting better and better! We managed a magnificent overall total of 1249 individual starts in club races, led by Joan Whyte in ‘Grey Knott’ in the keelboats with 51 starts, followed by ‘Scoline’ with 43, and ‘Suspicion’ with 40.
Phil and Ali Ashworth in ‘Hussy’ achieved 44 in the Squibs, hotly pursued by ‘Saskia V’ with 40 and ‘Inquisition’ with 36. Celia Rushton with 24 in the Aero for the Dinghy fleet with ‘Bolton Wanderer’ not far behind with 19. Congratulations to them, and to all those members who have contributed so positively to the life of the club during 2022.
It is harder to track cruising activities, though boats have quietly sailed off to Brittany and other exotic destinations. Iain Jones and Celia Rushton have raised the bar somewhat by cruising the south coast to Portsmouth in their Squib ‘Aldebaran’, Paul Burger has posted dramatic videos of his late season trip to IOW, while former member Jim Blundell recently posted news of his successful Atlantic crossing, for which he even won a trophy!
The fact that, between them, boats with FRA on the mainsail managed 67 starts between them at WSC brings me to the fact that Cherbourg Yacht Club celebrate their 85th anniversary in 2023, and we hope that we can share our combined 195th anniversary both here and in France, with the renewal of the Transmanche and our customary rally.
Cherbourg have as always gone from strength to strength in 2022, helped by both the Drheam Cup and the Fastnet, but mainly driven by their drive towards excellence and ‘esprit de competition’, which has enabled them (yet again!) to win the ‘best French keelboat club’ award for the year at the Salon Nautique in Paris.
They still have some way to go to match our stats for race turnouts, though…
Wishing you all a great sailing season in 2023!
Steve Fraser
