Twilight Thursday Sailing
Twilight Thursdays start on 07-May-236
Safety cover from 6pm until about 8
Includes Improvers and Discover Racing, details below.
There are 3 ways to participate:
- Have a sail on our beautiful lake
- “Improvers” (you can sail but have only just learned or haven’t sailed for a while)
You might like some help with rigging, a bit of advice or suggestion of an activity on the water.
An experienced sailor will be on hand from 6pm- meet by the flagpole. - Discover Racing,
This is a great way to practice, to improve your boat handling and build confidence.
It starts on Thursday 28-May-26 and runs over 5 successive Thursday evenings providing an informal, relaxed and, we hope, enjoyable introduction to racing at Chew.
In the sessions we aim to include:
revisiting the five essentials
starting the race – slow speed control, holding position,
upwind and downwind legs of the course – sail efficiently, look for gusts and shifts
mark rounding- thinking ahead, control when changing direction
putting it all together – mini-regatta
Meet at 6pm, rigged and changed, for a short briefing before going on the water. Then ashore by 8pm for a debrief. To get the most out of these sessions, please try to attend at least one Thursday session before 28-May-26 to refamiliarise yourself with your boat. No need to book, just turn up as and when you can. You’ll need your own boat or access to a club one – any class is fine.
If you have any questions please contact Andy Scott, Sailing Secretary sailing@chewvalleysailing.org.uk
and he’ll forward to us.
Helen Martin, Nick Martindale, James Williams
Don’t forget – Grand Easter Egg Hunt 11- 3pm this Sunday
The Easter Bunny will be bouncing by the club on Easter Sunday (5th of April), hiding a whole basketful of egg-cellent surprises around the grounds!
Bring your curiosity and your best clue‑solving skills as you follow a trail of Easter‑themed riddles. Crack the code, uncover the secret password, and you’ll be rewarded with some seriously tasty treats!
Hop on over to the bar area between 11am until 3pm to collect clues and maps. We look forward to seeing you there!
All welcome!
Lake and Cake Returns on 18-Apr-26!
I am looking forward to seeing you all on Saturday 18-Apr-26 rigged and ready to sail at. 13:45 armed with a cake and £1 for the post sailing get together in the bar or weather permitting on the balcony.
I am hoping for a lovely sunny day with a gentle breeze for our first meeting of the season!
Dinghy Race Starts from 1st April
Following years of polite beeps and apologetic whistles, the committee is proud to unveil a bold new solution to start our club races involving ceremonial cannons. Starting today, race countdowns will be signalled with the firing of full-sized maritime cannons, with 3 now already installed ready for use on the balcony next to the race hut.
we envisage these will have several advantages over the traditional horn system, including significantly improved sailor attentiveness, and a dramatic reduction in loitering near the start line (largely due to self-preservation instincts).
PRO Adan Broughton explained, “We wanted something unambiguous. When the cannon fires, you’ll know. If you don’t, the splashdown a few metres away should help clarify.”
While the cannon will primarily fire blanks, members should be aware that this may include the occasional experimental payload, such as compressed air bursts, dramatic smoke charges, and, during particularly competitive fleets, the legendary ‘warning potato.’
In preparation all Race Officers, and assistants (including officers of the day) need to undergo a new compulsory familiarisation programme. This will cover essential skills such as safe lighting procedures, correct aiming (generally “not at the fleet”), wind compensation for drifting wadding, and advanced countdown techniques including the ever-popular “stand well back” signal. Please click here to sign up for your familiarisation course
Competitors and members are strongly advised to:
- Avoid clustering directly in front of the race hut balcony
- Keep a respectful distance from anything emitting smoke
- Consider whether a slightly late start might, in fact, be the wiser tactical choice
- Check with your insurer that being peppered by gun shot is a covered risk
The committee would like to reassure members that all safety measures have been carefully considered, although the exact definition of “safe distance” is still under review pending further testing.
We are confident this exciting development will bring a new level of energy, urgency, and excitement to club racing. Spectators are encouraged to come and view the new spectacle, preferably from behind something solid.
Happy sailing… and remember: this year, the race really does start with a bang.
Duties Update
Thank you to all members who undertake their duties. Your fellow sailors and the club very much appreciate it
Duty Roster now open until end of August 2026
I will be allocating duties for June shortly, so those of you wishing to choose your duty date during the period from June to the end of August, please volunteer via Dutyman. The current duty requirement is approximately 2 ½ duties per membership year (1st April to 31st March). So, if you did 2 duties in the 2025/26 membership year, you will need to do 3 in the forthcoming 2026/27 membership year
Duty Reminders
The timing of email Duty Reminders has changed so that you will now receive reminders 6 weeks and 2 weeks before your Duty date.
To help ensure that you don’t overlook a duty, you can sign up for two helpful reminders via the “Sync with your phone calendar” tab in Dutyman:
- Personal Reminders: Push notifications to your phone
- Duty Calendar: this will publish your duties to your phone calendar. Copy the URL link and subscribe to the duty calendar. The QR code does a one-off insertion of your duties into your phone calendar
If you are not renewing your membership for 2026/7
Please let the membership secretary (membership@chewvalleysailing.org.uk) and myself know immediately so that we don’t allocate you a duty over the coming year
Mark Dinwoodie
Duties Secretary
duties@chewvalleysailing.org.uk
Anchoring the Committee Boat
A quick reminder to anyone using the committee boat that when the wind picks up there is a heavy anchor that can be used to help hold the committee boat on station in place of the normal, smaller anchor fitted to the boat.
The larger anchor clips easily in place and is stored in the stern of the committee boat – see the video here if you want a reminder of how this works
Bath Robe 2026
By Killian Magee 16-Feb-26
Over the weekend of the 14th-15th February, the fifth annual Bath Robe Team Racing Event took place at Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club, marking the second consecutive weekend of Team racing at CVLSC following BUCS Western Qualifiers.
The event kicked off in true university fashion on the Friday night, with teams from across the south descending into the heart of Bath for a social. Teams enjoyed a tour of Bath’s finest party spots, finishing in Komedia where teams were on the dancefloor well into the small hours.
As teams arrived on the Saturday morning, they were greeted by sunshine and bacon sandwiches, however the 3 knots of wind made the outlook for team racing rather bleak. Despite this, the Race Committee was able to run 25 races across the day, providing opportunities for some surprisingly competitive light wind team racing.
With the racing for the day adjourned at 16:00, competitors headed to the club bar for a well-earned beer whilst watching the rugby. This was followed by a delicious meal prepared by the CVLSC catering, and another night on the town back in Bath.
Arriving on Saturday morning, sailors were greeted by champagne sailing conditions, a steady breeze of 10 knots with the occasional large gust blowing through. As the races began to tick away, the wind began to drop off, and the change to full sized sails was slickly executed across 18 boats in 15 minutes.
At the top of the leaderboard, Exeter Red and Bath Turbo Fresh began to pull away from the rest of the field, and a crowd of spectators began to amass onshore to watch what was going to be a hotly contested final.
Race 1&2 saw each team take a convincing win over the other, leaving it all down to the final race. A pre-start mistake saw Exeter filling one of their boats with water, cementing them at the back of the pack for the race. However, some superb team racing saw Exeter wrangling back their other two boats into a 1-3, and securing the win.
Overall, the event was a great success despite the light winds on the Saturday, and UBSC looks forward to welcoming teams back in 2027 for another weekend of competitive racing.
The University of Bath Sailing would like to thank all those who sailed and helped at the event, with a particular thanks to the Umpires and to Martin Smethers, who was able to run as many races as possible in the challenging conditions.
Lost property
This lost property is starting to build up again and we will shortly be making plans to sell off any kit that is unclaimed. We will obviously give prior notice of any sale but in the meantime, if you have left any kit at the club, please do check the lost property (stored in the signing on room on the NE clubhouse corner) and reclaim it.
Club Racing Start Sequence
A reminder that from the start of April we will be using the revised start sequences for club racing. The changes are small and align better with racing across the rest of the country (rolling 3 minute sequence). Have a look at displayed documentation within the declaration room for more guidance when we get to the start of April.
Andy Jones
Commodore