Weymouth
Sailing
Club

To open our 101st season we obviously need to build on our Centenary, and so the theme of this year's dinner is 'The Atlantic'. Our guests are Adrian Bugler and Jane Olliff, who braved that ocean last year, and (weather permitting!) Thierry Lacour and Anne Mataguez from Cherbourg Yacht Club - Thierry will be joining Louis-Marie Dussère on his famous 'Raging Bee' for a double-handed transatlantic race later this year, and naturally we want to support this venture of our French sister club.

Deauville, Douarnenez or Dartmouth - whatever your destination this year, why not come along and join in the annual Cruising Evening at the club, starting at 7.30pm. We will not be doing food this year, though the bar will be open, and the evening will consist of a number of short presentations on various aspects of cruising, reports from last year, with lots of photos to look at.

Did you know that you can support the Lifeboats whenever you buy from Amazon? If you go through the RNLI website they get a donation from Amazon of at least 5% of the value of each purchase. The link is http://rnli.org/howtosupportus/otherwaystohelp/Pages/Amazon.aspx. Why not keep the page in your favourites and use it each time you make an order?

RNSA Portland Branch has invited Weymouth SC members to join them for a game of skittles at the Fox and Hounds Inn, Cattistock, at 19:30 on Sunday 16 February. Please contact Jacquie Shears, RNSA Social Secretary, on 01300 341126 or 07534 164459 if you are interested.

Twenty one members joined Sunday’s walk led by Caroline Nairn on the first nice day for weeks, the sun shone and the black clouds avoided us.

You couldn't make it up, they say, but someone has - Robert Redford maintains a single wooden expression throughout the film, there is no dialogue, he is either on a yacht (or briefly over the side) or in a rather squishy liferaft throughout, and things just go on getting worse. Not a brilliant recipe for a movie, though the fish in the underwater shots upstage the entire surface action with some terrific formation swimming!

With a new season's sailing to look forward to, what better venue to announce it than the East Shambles, where I went last Friday in a brief weather window - which still included a 30-knot squall with driving rain!

Thanks as always to Woody's generosity, we were able to take advantage of a lovely morning on Saturday to go round the bay getting the marks in.

This years prize giving for the YOBs was held on the 3th January at WSC.
The YOBs turned out with their family and friends even though the weather was appalling.
Cory took the most prizes including the If Only Trophy for trying to sink the Jaffa, one cup he won't be showing everyone.
We saw some new names on the cups with Sam Avant taking Top Newcomer and Alexandra Stevenson taking her first racing cup.
Seb was unable to pick up his so Grandad Cliff stood in, I don't think anyone noticed the difference!?.

The weather for the last race of 2013 in Weymouth Bay was almost a carbon copy of the first race - a fair breeze with wall-to-wall sunshine. A total of 28 boats from toppers to 36 footers turned out for a race in fantastic conditions when a favourable window opened in the succession of gales which have battered the South Coast.

Video just after the start