Sailing Club News – Wednesday 24-Mar-21

Maths was never my long suit, but I reckon that after this news drops into your inboxes, there will be 161 hours (and only 105 waking ones!) before we can sail again! Preparations for the great return are well advanced; our trusty Rear Commodore has arranged for a complete Club clean, inside and out, new picnic tables ready for socially distanced eating, new doors to the Training Room and the pontoon has been repaired. Steve Turner and Alan Coventry have been working to have our fleet of powerboats ready and the Committee Boat afloat – need I go on?!
BUT we are in real need of Duty volunteers:-

Duty Volunteers requested!

Without duty teams in place, we can’t go sailing, so this is a request for members to volunteer on Dutyman for duty slots, particularly in April-June. You will see that the duty slots for 2021-22 season are available, and I will be rostering members into the first 3 months of duties imminently. If you would like a choice in when you do duties, please use the ‘Volunteer for a duty’ button on the right-hand side when you’re logged into Dutyman. Note: Members should expect to do 2-3 full day duties per season – so you could fulfil your duty tally over a couple of weekends if you want; If you prefer ARO duties, volunteer now as they are in demand and there’s fewer of them; Only suitably trained members should volunteer for Rescue Helm duties. Contact duties@chewvalleysailing.org.uk if you need any help using Dutyman.
Tom Skailes, Duties Secretary

Health and Safety representative wanted to join our General Committee

For several years this post which requires knowledge, diligence and enthusiasm has been ably filled by RS200 sailor, Dave Bonstow. Many thanks Dave from the whole Club for your sterling efforts to keep us all safe and legislation compliant – you are already being missed.
However, this key position now needs to be filled so please, if any of you would consider stepping up to the mark, please contact either myself commodore@chewvalleysailing.org.uk
Or our Secretary, Chris Sunderland at secretary@chewvalleysailing.org.uk

Adam & Rick Bowers talk – ‘Race Starting’ 7.30 Saturday 27-Mar-21

This coming Saturday we have another exceptional speaker, this time Adam Bowers, assisted by Rick Bowers, who will be helping us all get tuned into racing again with their thoughts on race starting, and how to get the best possible start.

Adam has a wealth of knowledge and experience across all aspects of performance sailing with many years of racing at the top level and has trained some of the best international sailors. He has an infectious enthusiasm that I am sure will inspire us all to get out our sailing boots and launch ourselves, and our boats, into the new sailing season.

The talk should last around 40 minutes with questions at the end, so join your fellow sailors and make sure you don’t miss out on that pearl of wisdom that will transform your starts!

Return to sailing

After the latest lockdown I am sure that I am not the only one excited by the prospect of getting back on the water. In the last newsletter I gave broad details of what you can expect on our return, but to re-iterate:

  • You will still need to book to go sailing
  • The changing rooms will not be open for use except in emergencies. Please arrive and leave in your sailing kit, or plan to change discreetly in the car park
  • We are increasing the numbers rostered to do RIB duties to 2 per RIB, reflecting the latest RYA advice and increased understanding about the risk of disease transmission outdoors
  • We are increasing the maximum wind limit to 20 knots provided both RIBs are fully crewed. However, if there is only a helm crewing each RIB, the limit will revert to 15knts unless a volunteer crew can be found.
  • Please remember to maintain ’social distancing’ requirements on shore and wear a face covering if you go into the clubhouse to order/collect any food
  • Please re-read the member instructions on the website each time before coming sailing

In terms of racing,

Our scheduled racing is now on the club website. Brief highlights and points to note for the immediate few weeks are:

Sailing will start from Wednesday 31-Mar-21 – the booking link is elsewhere in this newsletter
We plan to kick off our Spring morning racing series on Sunday 04-Apr-21 with 2 races held back to back starting from 10.30am.
For the Sunday racing series we will revert back to our previous race starting schedule, with the handicap fleet 1st, followed by the Lasers and then Solos.
Handicap boats will continue to opt to sail either a windward/leeward or conventional course
The Laser starting sequence will revert to allow the radials to start 1 minute ahead of the laser start, and the 4.7s 2 minutes ahead.
Our Wednesday evening series will commence with the practice race to be held at 6.30 pm on 07-Apr-21. There will NOT be a separate W/L course option for the Wednesday evening series.
We will progress to also start our afternoon Spring series from mid-April, by which time hopefully some access to changing rooms and hospitality will be possible.

I shall look forward seeing lots of you on the water,
Andy

Lake & Cake

We now have Lake & Cake dates in the club calendar, and the ladies are eagerly waiting to be back on the water in April (and eating cake afterwards of course, all suitably socially distanced). The aim of ‘lake & cake’ is to have a fun afternoon sailing in a relaxed group. Any skill level is welcome, and you don’t have to be an ace sailor. So do join in.

The Saturday afternoon dates are:

Sat 10th April (1)
Sat 15th May (2)
Sat 5th June (3)
Sat 3rd July (Ladies Day – Trophy race, training & social)
Sat 31st July (4)
Sat 4th September (5)
Sat 25th September (6)

The plan for the first Lake & Cake on 10-Apr-21 is to meet outside by the Training room at 1:45pm rigged & ready to sail if possible (more information will follow nearer the date re Government rules & regs).
If you would like to be added to the Lake & Cake email & WhatsApp group please contact Rosie on rosie.bowers@btinternet.com.

RYA Training at CVLSC – Seeking a new Chief Dinghy Instructor!

You may have seen in the last newsletter that I have agreed to take over from Cathy Bartram as RYA Principal. This means it’s best for the club (and for me!) if someone could now consider volunteering to fill the role of Chief, or Lead, Dinghy Instructor. I’m more than happy to have a word with any Instructor who would be interested to know more about this chance to develop their skills and experience.
I’m in the process of setting up the 2 beginners’ courses we now have in the club’s calendar, so there’s an opportunity for an interested candidate to shadow what’s going on with a view to taking on the role fully in 2022.
Get in touch if you are interested: Dave Orme at
training.cvlsc@gmail.com or 0773 4815271

Powerboat Training

And yet again a request, does anyone have a complete, useable windsurfer they would like to donate for training as on the safety course we have to demonstrate how to rescue the sailor and board, complete rigs only please.

Thanks, Jeff Stratford
jeffstratford@btinternet.com

Chew Crew and more

As we return to sailing in 2021, we are planning to start up the full range of the junior and youth training groups including Chew Crew and the various race groups. We are expecting significant demand and so to help with planning it would be very beneficial if parents could indicate which sessions they expect their child(ren) to be interested in attending. This will allow us to plan accordingly. The various group coordinators will also use the sign up information to set up email and WhatsApp communication lists. Once the detailed planning for each session has been completed, formal sign up and payment options for the sessions will go live, and parents who have expressed an interest will be contacted to sign up for that specific session

Parents are asked to register their interest in potential sessions as soon as possible using webcollect https://webcollect.org.uk/cvlsc/event/2021-junior-and-youth-programs-email-sign-up

With continued social distancing we will need more parental involvement in order to lay on the sessions. Parents will need to be present for rigging and de-rigging, launching and recovery. Every parent will need to volunteer in some capacity. For those able to help on the water we are running an Assistant Instructor course in mid-April. Places are very limited. The course is open to those 14 years and older, with experience to the level of one of the RYA Advanced Modules and a commitment to helping out with Chew Crew on Sunday mornings. If interested, contact Nick Edmonds, CVLSC Youth Coordinator youth@chewvalleysailing.org.uk

Virtual Racing

With our return to the ‘real thing’ imminent, this Sunday at 11.00 will be the last hurrah, we hope for ever(!), for the need for that competitive thrill of virtual racing, in exotic places (like Portsmouth!), in exotic boats which most of us would struggle to sail let alone race, and the very real pleasure of beating sailors we will be unlikely to repeat when back in the real world!
It would be good to get back, just for once, to those bumper turnouts from the first lockdown to establish who was truly the greatest at this finger twitching art…. Last chance to contact Toby Peacock on toby.peacock@icloud.com
He will add you to the Whatsapp contact group for full details.

Pontoon Repairs

On behalf of all of us, particularly those denizens of the Southern half of the dinghy park, often with boats heavier than a small car, I want to thank the team that worked to reassemble the hammerhead pontoon. As the pictures show, Simon Conway, John Bone, Allen Marsh, Mike Higgins and Andy Jones did a great job on a very pleasant sunny day. Thank you.

The Chew Quiz night

A small but in no way intellectually challenged group joined John Kelly last weekend for another of his incredibly well devised quizzes. There was much muttering and shaking of heads on the Zoom call, but John’s uncanny anti-google surveillance meant that honesty ruled the day! Well done to Paul Smalley and Anna for beating us all with a most unhealthy knowledge of all things sailing!

So, all that is left is to say is that I am very much looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible back where we belong…
John Smalley – commodore@chewvalleysailing.org.uk

What stretch of water?

Tom Skailes, Duties supremo and Seafly expert…

Needing some Starting tips?

He’s your man when he is not catching fish this size…
Adam Bowers

From this…

..to this and a great socially distanced repair team.

As it should look.

Reflecting on the job…

Virtual Regatta Inshore – hopefully last time on Sunday 28th at 11.00