Welcome to another round up of all your club activity ( and there is lots):
Family Fun Regatta – Saturday 28-Jun-25
Ahoy there!
Aided by the unwavering support of chief pirates Hugh, Jeff and the motley Police Group, it’s time once again for our annual family fun day.
Come and join in on 28-Jun-25 from approx 10.30. There will be lots going on for all the family, including:
- Games – Giant Jenga, 4 in a line, snakes and ladders, twister and DIDI CAR RACING (no maximum age) – all day till c 4pm
- Fancy dress with prizes for everyone dressed up ( pirate themed costumes are normally de rigour but any nautical themed costume goes) – parade and Judging around 2pm
- the annual Round the Island Race (weed permitting) starting at around midday (is there another that’s more prestigious, I think not)
- trip and treasure hunt on Denny Island – after the fancy dress
- Fantastic food from Ben and Antonia in the galley
Sun and fair winds are (almost) guaranteed so come along and join the fun
Duties Update June 2025 by Mark Dinwoodie
The duties roster is now open until the end of December. I will be allocating duties over the next few weeks
If you wish to choose your duties on dates convenient to you, then please volunteer via dutyman (only club approved / qualified Rescue Helms can do Rescue Helm duties).
Please note that the required number of duties per membership year (April to March) is approximately 2½ duty days. If you did 2 duties in the last membership year, then you will need to do 3 in the current membership year.
Thank you especially to those people who have volunteered for duties at short notice, mainly due to late notice of membership non-renewal, it is much appreciated.
Gate off Walley Court road
Please can I remind everyone that the gate off Walley Court road must be closed and locked. If you are leaving the club and it has been left open please close and lock it, don’t assume it is Ok to leave it ajar. And, if the lock has been removed or is unusable for another reason please ensure that the gate is pulled closed at the very least. Thank you.
Thursday Improvers and Start Racing Coaching
The start racing group going through their paces
Thursday Improvers and Start Racing weeks 1&2 have been well attended with over 10 keen sailors. Week 1 focussed on the 5 essentials of sailing with a number of starts thrown in to build awareness. Week 2, although hampered by very gusty wind, tested slowing down and timing the approach to the start line; not easy with vicious gusts coming through! Week 3 (12th) will look at mark rounding and even more start practice. We meet ready to sail at 6pm on Thursday evening if anyone wants to join in (previous attendance not mandatory). The start racing team; Helen, James & Chris
Advanced Rescue helm course 21-Jun-25
On Saturday 21st June we have an Advanced Rescue Helm Safety Course, it is a follow on from the PB2 which you must have completed. It is one day, NOT an RYA course and free. The aim of the Club is that all rescue helms will have done the RYA Safety Boat course or this in house course. We have had two short notice cancellations so have two spare places. To book or ask any questions please email jeffstratford@btinternet.com
Denny Island working party 25-Jun-25
On Wednesday 25-Jun-25 we are organising a working party to go across to Denny Island to prepare it for the treasure hunt on the Island during the family regatta. Thank you to all those who have already volunteered but always room for more. Meet at the flagpole at 1000 tooled up ready to be ferried to the Island to make it safe for the treasure hunters, any questions please ask. I suggest good footwear and long trousers.
Fun Thursdays commence
Our first FUN Thursday is on Thursday 3rd July, the Police group will open the club and provide safety cover for everyone from 1400, at about 1800 we will have a short FUN race, a chance to use the skills from the start racing sessions, no entry fee or prizes just bragging rights. After the race we will have a BBQ, no fixed prices we ask for a donation to cover costs. If you are coming to the BBQ you need to let me know by 1800 on Monday 30-Jun-25 so we can buy sufficient supplies. Any special dietary needs let me know.
We will be running further FUN days on 17-Jul-25, 31-Jul-25 and 14-Aug-25.
PB2 Course 05/12-Jul-25
Finally we have a PB2 course on Saturday 5th and Saturday 12th July with spaces, please book via your Webcollect account
below – 9 students successfully completed the PB2 course run at the end of May
CVLSC ILCA Open report by Gus
No photos from this years event but here is one from last year!
The wind picked up for the ILCA Open on May 24th, luckily most participants clocked this and many went down a rig size. My start to the day was paused by a malfunctioning outhaul that disabled me on launch, but not before I was 100 meters offshore. This gave the fleet the chance to sail past me on their way to the start and me the chance to stand up and wave my arms around like a maniac to convince the rescue rib that if they towed me back to the slipway right quick I could still make race 1. Which they did! Thanks to shore support and to the Solo that counted me in with a minute to go (and allowed me to get my best start of the day). We had visitors come from as far away as Mount’s Bay and Wimbleball. Amongst them was Ben Flower from Paignton who won the Open back in 2023 in his ILCA 7, he’s a young fit young Olympic hopeful who used his muscle to excellent effect, winning race 1, 2 and 3 easily. In Race 2 the wind really picked up and the ILCA 4s (4.7 in old money) knew they had made the right decision, had it been a handicap race Jan Frayne’s time in her ILCA 4 would have beaten all the ILCA 6s and most of the 7s too. As it was, she came second overall and got a special prize from Andy Jones, Race Officer, for the effort. Special mention too to Lizzie Cooke and Anna Mason in their ILCA 5s, keeping it sunny side up was a challenge in the early races and they did much better than that, coming 6th and 9th overall. Julian Shawer from QMSC (ex-CVLSC) battled it out with Luke Edwards from Sutton Bingham for the top ILCA 6 place and won it with a 1, 2, 1, 2. Young Giovanni Bianchi (CVLSC) showed his class in high winds by grabbing a 2nd and 3rd, coming 4thoverall in the 6s, behind Damian Boreham (CVLSC) who was complaining about a leaking boat before noticing his gudgeon was falling off. In the 4s, Sarah Harding won with a 1, 3, 1, 1 in front of Jan Frayne and Helen Martin. In the 7s Julian Cooke was the only sailor to worry Ben F, with me romping home, very happy, a distant third. Thanks to the race team, the rescue teams, and all the competitors for making it such an exhilarating and good-natured endeavor.
CVLSC ILCA Open Results 2025.
ILCA 4
1st Sarah Harding (CVLSC)
2nd Jan Frayne (CVLSC)
3rd Helen Martin (CVLSC)
ILCA 6
1st Julian Shawyer (QMSC / CVLSC)
2nd Luke Edwards (Sutton Bingham)
3rd Damian Boreham (CVLSC)
ILCA 7
1st Ben Flower (Paignton SC)
2nd Julian Cooke (CVLSC)
3rd Gus Cameron (CVLSC
RS Teras at Chew Valley Lake SC
By Arabella Broughton
Teras racing at the recent Chew open
Skillful sailing was needed on Saturday but not in the way everyone had expected. All week the forecast had said it would be incredibly windy but it turned out that it would be the opposite. The wind gradually decreased over the course of four consecutive races. In the last race the wind had dropped off completely and the heavy rain ensued.
Hari Clark (Draycote Water SC) showed some great skill and won every race in the sport fleet. Stefan Anderson (Exe SC) made Hari work for his win in the last race. There is lots of great racing in the fleet with notable performances by Barney Rhodes (Exe SC), Harry Smalley (CVLSC) and Oscar Lee (Whitefriars SC). Everyone in the Sport fleet visited the rib for advice and Haribo after every race.
1st Chew boat – Harry Smalley
While Luke Keighley (Avon SC) and Tom Solly (Starcross YC) tussled for first in the Pro fleet with Luke coming out on top. Lots of happy faces were seen on the race course even with the rain. Everyone is really friendly and supportive.
Thank you to Chew Valley Sailing Club and the volunteers. Especially my dad and grandad on the committee boat.
Club racing update by Sailing Sec James Williams
DONT MISS the Summer Solstice Race Weds 18-Jun-25 – and free beer!
A typical balmy Wednesday evening
The points racing on the evening of Wednesday 18th June will also have the Summer Solstice trophy awarded (times will be taken for the leading ILCA of each rig). We didn’t manage to award this last year (who can forget the Blue Green Algae?), so it would be amazing to make this the best turned out Wednesday of the year so far (we’ve had a couple of weeks with over 50 boats).
As an added incentive to help make it a bumper turnout at the club there will be a free San Miguel for each sailor either out cruising on the evening, or racing in the trophy race. Some come and join in the fun and enjoy a refreshing beer with some great food in the bar afterwards 🙂
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:
ILCA starts
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
One of the fantastic Chew Crew Group of sailors competing in the afternoon 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 will be produced and added to the club website at https://www.chewvalleysailing.org.uk/racing-documents-2/ in due course. This will be initiated for the start of the Summer PM Points series.
Member Travels
Alongside their invasion of the PM Sprint Racing start line in recent weeks, our youth sailors have also been flying the flag at open meetings. There have been two rounds of the RS Tera SW Traveller Series, with Peter & Harry Smalley and Bella Broughton travelling to Whitefriars for racing in a 24 boat fleet. Three weeks later the fleet returned to Chew – have a read of Bella’s great report in this news to see how the 7 Chew boats fared.
In the other youth singlehander, James Colls sailed at the Topper Traveller Series at Parkstone YC and also at Saltash, posting some great results in competitive fleets.
2 weeks before hosting the RS Teras, Chew held our annual Solo and ILCA open. Gus’ ILCA report is in this newsletter, and Chris Meredith’s Solo report is on Yachts and Yachting (congratulations to the two Chris’ for filling the top 2 spots). Great to see 24 Chew boats on the start line across the fleets.
In addition to the Toppers, Poole Harbour has hosted the Osprey Southern Area Championship, with Ian Cadwallader in 4th overall, as well as Parkstone hosting the RS400 Southern Tour held out in the bay. Paul and Anna Smalley also finishing in 4th overall.
Three club RS700s travelled all the way to Lake Garda for their European Championships. Rob Higgins extended his dominance of the national fleet to become European Champion with an almost perfect scorecard. James Clark also had a great regatta to finish in 2nd, with Elliot Booley continuing his upwards trajectory in the boat to finish in the top half. Top work skiff fleet.
Too recent for a report, but I also understand Tom Jeffcoate won the Irish Squib Nationals over the weekend just gone, hopefully more to come in the next newsletter!
Finally, the police group have continued their travels with eleven members travelling to the Police Sport UK Nationals at Winsford Flash Sailing Club Cheshire this week, and returning in time for car parking duty this Saturday and Sunday!
Andy Jones
Commodore