Weymouth
Sailing
Club

This is my second year of the traditional three years at the helm as Commodore. Since my last ‘View from the Bridge’ newsletter in March, we have enjoyed a busy season of events including:

MAY
Transmanche Race - we were pleased to host our neighbours from France again after a gap of four years.
IRC Southern Area championship in late May - another successful event for the club
JUNE
Club Open Day - this opportunity to experience what the Club has to offer brought a number of new members and will be followed up in September by a New Members Evening.

The Club is organising a picnic on Ringstead beach next Sunday (27th August). There will be an all in fun race there and back for Squibs,dinghies and cruisers.Those not wishing to race are are invited to escort the fleet. Everyone is welcome to join what is very much a family event. Club boats are welcome to participate in this event and can be booked out using the usual procedures.
We will anchor off the south end of Ringstead beach by “Burning Cliff”.

The Kenion trophy is next weekend's challenge, named after Hugh Kenion (see my article of 2019, which you can search on the website).

Crumbleholme Trophy Race, self start Saturday 12 August 23 at 11:30. I arrive apparently the only yacht to accept the challenge of the long distance race with forecast SW F5-6.

So in the Spirit of Crumbleholme as intended, I decide to lead the way. With a cursory call on Ch09 to anyone who was listening I announced I'd crossed the line 11:30 on the nail and was on my way.

This is named after Dick Crumbleholme (Commodore 1963-1965), who led by example – his Yachting World Dayboat, ‘Coralline’, with its distinctive striped flying jib, was invariably present in the bay on race days.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has those days when if it can go wrong, it will! Thus started our cruise to the Solent. The intention was to join the other club boats for some of the trip, which rapidly started to look like it was not going to be the case.

Last Friday it was announced that the YCW Regatta at the weekend would be postponed due to the forecast. However Ned Winter put this available time to good use and made the long trek to Suffolk to collect two Lark dinghies from Waldringfield sailing club and bring them back to sunny Weymouth as club boats. Purchasing these has been part of a plan to encourage members to try out dinghy sailing and join in dinghy racing.
In addition, we will be hosting the Lark Nationals next year for which these boats will be available.

A very healthy flotilla of 6 boats started out on the latest WSC cruise in company to the Solent. Merlot with Bill and Lorraine on board on a restricted time frame departed for Yarmouth a day before the main fleet. Then Saturday morning saw the departure of single-handers Murray on Dulcibella and David on Nutcracker along with Simon and Jill on Ojo, Mark and crew on Adelie and Annie and Ray on Crystella, also bound for Yarmouth.

With this year's Summer Solstice falling mid week on a Wednesday it was an opportunity for some boats to make an extended cruise via the Channel Islands, instead of working it around a long weekend. On Saturday with all the bureaucratic exit and arrival formalities sorted beforehand (actually quite simple now) it was Bill and Lorraine on Merlot, Joan, Miles and Eva on Grey Knott, Paul on Winters Maid and Ray and Annie on Crystella that set off at 5am to a gorgeous sunrise across the channel towards Alderney.

We left our WSC mooring on the 14th June bound for Roscoff.We experienced beautiful sunny weather and a great sunset in the Channel but very little wind. Meteo France was predicting La Brume which translates as light mist off the French coast.However the predicted light mist turned out to be dense fog with less than 50m visibility. We almost docked in the ferry terminal before we saw it!