Easter egg hunt
A huge thank‑you to everyone who joined us for this year’s Easter Egg Hunt! It was wonderful to see sailors of all ages exploring the club, solving clues, and enjoying a bit of spring sunshine between the showers!
We hope you all had fun — and that the Easter Bunny treated you kindly. We’re already looking forward to next year’s adventure!
Editors Note: and I’m sure everyone will also join me in thanking Camilla for organising the hunt – thank you Camilla, fab idea!
Youth Programme Update
The youth programme kicked off this weekend, with over 40 young sailors taking to the water on Sunday, in beautiful sunshine and a gentle breeze. Thanks to all the instructors for making this possible.
While the summer programme is now fully booked, we hope to offer more sessions in autumn and possibly some ad-hoc opportunities to get involved. Please email chewcrew@chewvalleysailg.org.uk if you’d like to join the youth WhatsApp group to find out more.
The club’s pirate day on Saturday 27 June is also a great event for young sailors and their families.
Duties Update April 2026
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 September 2026
I will be allocating duties for the remainder of July shortly, so those of you wishing to choose your duty date during the period from July to the end of September, please volunteer via Dutyman as soon as possible.
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 current 2026/27 membership year.
The Duties Book has been updated (April 2026 Edition)
It is available though the website and there are hard copies at the club. Changes and recent additions are highlighted in blue. Processes relating to the safe and efficient use of the club are regularly updated, so it is important to read through the relevant sections prior to your duty.
Thank you
Mark Dinwoodie
Duties Secretary
duties@chewvalleysailing.org.uk
Lake and Cake
The first Lake and Cake of the year was a perfect afternoon with sunshine, friendship, a good wind for blasting across the lake and back for an hour followed by delicious goodies in the bar.
We are looking forward to our next get together on 16-May-26 meeting at the usual time of 13:45 rigged and ready.
Powerboat Training
Got your PB2 and want to take the next step? On Saturday 23-May-26 we are running the club in house ARHSC (Advanced rescue helm safety course) Your PB2 will get you to an incident quickly and safely. This course will show you what to do when you get there. You will be shown how to recover a variety of craft and more importantly the seven methods of recovering a person. It is one day, run by RYA instructors and FREE.
Most of the time you will be on or in the water. We have plenty of spaces. Please book via your Webcollect account there is no charge. Any questions please ask chief-powerboat-instructor@chewvalleysailing.org.uk Thank you Jeff.
New to the Club and got your powerboat qualifications elsewhere? On the same day Saturday 23-May-26 we would like to invite you to a RIB introduction session, we cover club safety policy, our RIBs, daily checks, equipment carried and refuelling. Our tractor, launch and recovery and the location of all the safety equipment on site. We will be running them throughout the day so to book a slot contact Jeff chief-powerboat-instructor@chewvalleysailinh.org.uk if you can’t make that day get in touch and we will arrange another date thank you Jeff
Twilight Thursdays start on 07-May-26
Enjoy beautiful evenings on the lake. Safety cover from 6pm until about 8
Come sailing, take advantage of “Improvers”, and/or from 28-May-26 Discover Racing
Improvers
Burning question about your boat, sails or rigging?
A suggestion of a simple course to sail or an activity on the water.
A bit of gentle encouragement?
An experienced sailor or two will be on hand from 6pm- meet by the flagpole.
Discover Racing
You might have thought about having a go at racing or maybe wondered what all the fuss is about.
We do it because we love it and it makes us better sailors – learning all the time.
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 and an opportunity to practice, improve your boat handling and build confidence. In the sessions we aim to revisit the five essentials, focus on starting, the different legs of the course, mark rounding, thinking ahead, awareness of what’s going on around you and some basic rules.
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 28th May 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
Slippy Slips
A reminder all please to take care on the slipways, which can become very slippy this time of year. And a reminder, if you do have a little time to help there are a number of hard brushes in the undercover store and around the club that can help reduce the algae growth and slippiness with a little bit of hard work as so well demonstrated below 🙂
Fishing on the lake
A reminder please to all sailors afloat that we are required to keep clear of fishing on the lake, by giving 25m space around boat based fishing and 50m to shore based. Even if you’re not happy with where the boats are fishing, we should continue to follow this rule and report concerns back to the committee. For reference, an ILCA or RS Quest is just over 4m long and the fishing boats are classed as an obstruction for boats racing. The boats fly fishing will have lines with hooks that could be being cast anywhere around the boat.
Conversely, following recent discussion on the matter members will be pleased to note that Bristol Water have immediately issued a note banning boat fishing in the area off the front of the clubhouse bounded by the BW pontoons, our committee boat mooring and northern most slipway while we are sailing.
Club Keys – lost and found
If anyone has recently (or not so recently) found a club key please do contact me – the keys are all individually numbered and I will be able to get it back to the member concerned saving them both the lost deposit and inconvenience 🙂
Member Travels
More members are starting to compete again with the weather improving. The ILCA fleet in particular have been away. After sailing in the RYA Youth Nationals at Hayling Island SC, Giovanni Bianchi sailed at Weymouth for the ILCA6 National Open, alongside Ed Baker and Ollie Allen-Wilcox in the ILCA 7 fleet. These 3 also sailed the following weekend back at Weymouth for the subsequent national open.
James Colls sailed at the ITCA national series event at Rutland
Closer to home, both the Fireball and Scorpion fleets held open meetings at the club. Thank you to John Smalley and his race team for turning around races quickly and efficiently to keep both fleets happy.
Andy Jones
Commodore