Despite the weed squeezing us into a rapidly reducing sailing area there is still lots going on – details of past and future events can be found below:

Lost property – Final warning!

A month or so ago I highlighted the significant amount of lost property in the signing on area on the NE corner of the clubhouse.

A large amount of property remains – PLEASE BE AWARE that we will be taking steps in August to make any unclaimed items at that time available for sale to members. with any funds being put towards club funds. Items unsold will be disposed of.

So if you think you may have left something behind please collect it as soon as possible and remove it from the room before its gone!

Ladies Trophy Day and Lake and Cake is on 19-Jul-25

All female club members are invited to enter this fun and supportive event to try to win a place for their name on the beautiful trophy shown with last years winner below

Race officers Derian and Andy Scott will run a morning training session followed by 3 back to back races in the afternoon.
All competitors are invited to join the Lake and Cake group for tea and cake after the prize giving.
Anyone sailing a double hander may have a male crew.
You can enter by turning up on the day. The race briefing will be at 13:30 but it would be helpful to know in advance if you are planning to come to the training and/or the racing by messaging me via the club Facebook page or the ‘Social Sailing’ or ‘Chew Lasers’ WhatsApp groups
Further details will be posted on the club Facebook page nearer the time

Competitors at last years event:

Family regatta round up by Jeff Stratford

On Wednesday an intrepid group went to Denny Island to prepare it for the pirates treasure hunt during the family regatta. Here are the culprits.

A pretty scary bunch you must agree – many thanks to everyone who worked so hard on the day to help get things ready.

On the Saturday Hugh and I were assisted by Jackie (Hugh’s wife) it was also Hugh’s birthday, along with Nigel, Andy and Karen from the Police Section and our ferry boat Helm and Crew John Rogers and Alan Coventry. Thank you to everyone involved, it was a fantastic day.

The fleet set off towards the Sargasso Sea at the back of Denny Island:

PB 2 and first aid course spaces by Jeff Stratford

This Saturday the 5th and the following one the 12-Jul-25 we have a PB2 course, still 3 places available .

We have just booked a RYA first aid course for Saturday 13-Sep-25, still only £30

Please book via Webcollect or contact Jeff for more details.

Fun Thursdays

The Police Group are running FUN Thursdays on the 03-Jul-25, 17-Jul-25 and 3-Jul-25 and the 14-Aug-25. We will provide safety cover from 1400 for everyone to come along for a sail. We will have a short FUN race about 6 followed by a bbq. If you are coming to the bbq you need to let us know.

Chew Crew under the spotlight – by Leone Canini

What is Chew Crew

Chew Crew is an interactive activity in between the instructors and the engaged children. The course’s main aim is to teach beginners not to be afraid, and more experienced sailors to widen their skillset. In the Chew Crew activity there are two courses you can choose to join: the race group and the fun group. In the racing group you have an intense training programme working on speed, accuracy and in general finessing your racing abilities. After this course, you then have a choice to join the afternoon races to practice your skills in a more race like environment. In the fun group you improve some of the more fundamental skills not worrying about speed or racing. At the end of the fun group session, we always have a game to show our newly improved or learnt skills to the instructors.

Why is Chew Crew is so fun

Chew Crew is extremely fun because of the sailing that we all get to do and the sociable environment that we are all in with laughter lingering in the air. We all enjoy Chew Crew as we manage to slide in some time sailing with friends and companions, sharing our skills to the rest of the group. One of the main reasons why Chew Crew is so fun is because of the feeling of being free in the lake sailing and improving so in conclusion I believe that it is an amazing course. But all of this would not have been possible with ought all the extraordinary instructors and assistant instructors!

Youth programme update from the Chew Crew team

We’re just finalising the autumn youth offer. We’re hoping to provide:

  • Stage 3 & 4 courses
  • Some Sunday morning ‘FUN’ session for stage 2+ sailors
  • Plenty of opportunity for young racers to compete

CVLSC is also hosting a Topper event on the weekend of 20/21-Sep-25, which will be suitable for stage 3+ sailors.

Updates will be included in the newsletter, once plans have been finalised.

Pay and Play Coordinator needed please.

Thanks are due to Daniel Tinker who has fulfilled this role until work commitments now take her away – many thanks Danielle. As a result, we are now looking for a VOLUNTEER TO take on the role of our “PAY & PLAY” CO-ORDINATOR

The club is looking for a member who’s keen to get a bit more involved in the running of our activities by becoming the co-ordinator of our Pay & Play (P&P) scheme.

For those unfamiliar with P&P, some info is on the club website.
Pay & Play Sessions – Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club (chewvalleysailing.org.uk)
P&P is a scheme the club set up many years ago. It’s an informal, flexible way to offer taster sessions to people interested in finding out more about the sport (and joining the club!) and also to offer current, but inexperienced or lapsed, sailors a way to refresh skills or try new ones. By far the greater number of requests is emailed in from non-members keen to see the club and taste what the sport has to offer.

It’s important to emphasise from the off that P&P is not RYA training. No formal instruction is offered or expected.
As P&P isn’t RYA training, no instructing qualification or sailing competence is required to co-ordinate the scheme. The task is a simple process of marrying requests for sessions with the list of club instructors and experienced helms who have offered to take people out and make the scheme work.

Any keen member could do this, even a shore-bound one, to the benefit of all.
It would be great if someone could step forward to see how it works and we’ll do it together for the rest of this season. Drop me a line to find out more:

Dave Orme
Chief Dinghy Instructor principal@chewvalleysailing.org.uk

Lunch on the lake #3 19-Jul-25 by Simon Conway

Weather permitting, come along and cook up a feast ( or buy an amazing meal from Antonia’s Deli ) and dine onboard the best boat on the lake: Your boat! Anchor up, have a natter with your neighbour and enjoy some sailing before, or after your lunch – or even better, both.

Royal Windemere link up

The Royal Windermere Yacht Club has invited CVLSC members to join them for up to a week in the 2026 sailing season. Dates have yet to be agreed, this is to give notice to all club members that there will be an opportunity to sail Lake Windermere out of Bowness.

There will be a limit on boat numbers, I suspect that will be 8 and accommodations will be up to you to organise (so people get what they prefer). There is a campsite 5 minutes walk away from the club and there are plenty of B&B’s air B&B’s and hotel rooms available in the immediate area. Boats will be stored on club premises for the duration of our stay, launching is extremely easy and access is for members only ( including temporary members ) via electronic gate access cards. There is a restaurant and bar at the club and there are many places of interest to sail to during our stay, including the wonderful Jetty Museum. When the time comes to book it will be via webcollect and there will be a dedicated web page with more information.

I am writing this now to gauge the level of interest, so if this is something you would like to partake in then please let me know ( sailingskismo@gmail.com ) Dates will be based around their club’s calendar.

Club Racing Updates by James Williams

Club Racing Formats

Following feedback on a couple of aspects of regular club racing, the Sailing Committee are trialing a couple of changes for the Summer points racing, kicking off this Sunday 06-Jul-25:

AM ILCA starts

A reminder that for Summer AM racing, all ILCA rigs will start together and have their times taken & corrected to allow a fair reflection of finishing positions to be determined.

To assist the race officers, it is important that you are clear on the sign-on sheet what rig you are racing with (swapping rigs in the series is OK – this will be updated in the overall results by our Sailwave guru Josh Preater).

It will also help race teams enormously to collect both line position and time if you can ensure you affix your alternative short form sail number to any sail you use in the series (if this means nothing to you please speak with Gus or any member of the fleet!)

Wednesday evening racing remains unchanged for the time being.

PM Sprint Racing

With the welcome addition of the youth sailors to our PM sprint racing, the start sequence is being amended to have just 2 starts (Youth first, followed by all others) to help reduce the time spent waiting between races. An updated start sequence document has been produced and added to the club website at Racing Documents.

Member Travels

As with every year, the warm weather brings a glut of different events around the country, and Chew members have been travelling far and wide, seemingly most to Championship events

The recent Solo open meeting held at the club was won by our very own Chris Goldhawk, with Chris Meredith close behind. The full report can be read here and the happy winders are pictured below:

New member Chris Pope took his Phantom to Burton SC for their Inlands, A 2nd in R4 helping him to 9th overall. Paul and Anna continued their tour of the RS400 Southern circuit, also in the top 10 at a breezy Warsash for the Southern Champs.

After his Irish Nationals success last month, Tom Jeffcoate has now also won the UK Nationals in the Squibs at Royal Torbay with Mark Hogan.

Tom and Mark celebrate their win

Closer to home Chew has hosted another event, with the Fireball Inlands, Scorpion Inlands and Seafly Nationals held over the 14/15 June. As ever, thanks to the duty team for running some brilliant racing, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive about both the welcome and racing (particularly given the weed situation we’re all coming to terms with). Top Chew boat across the fleet was once again Tom Jeffcoate, finishing 3rd in the Scorpions with Tim Hartley crewing. 

Closer to home, last Sunday’s racing regatta was a triumph for Chris Goldhawk, pictured below, who beat all comers to win the morning Marshal Trophy race.

The afternoon racing was a close affair with a variety of winners, including Russ Abrahams in his Finn, also pictured below:

Plenty more events to report on next time round. As ever, do let us know if you’ve been away with your boat, whether it be racing or otherwise. 

Andy Jones

Commodore