Sailing Matters 28th October 2026
SAILING MATTERS 281026
Well now - there’s a thing - I’d like to be able to witter on about sailing events BUT I can’t because there havn’t been any. Storms Austen and Boelo have put paid to most of the sailing activity although not all the sailor’s activity. Sadly a good gang of sailors attended to the remains of T’ARK the club’s tidal classes committee boat last weekend. She came adrift and broke up on the rocks along the shore south of the club. It was certainly a violent weekend’s weather.
It was warm and dry in the Macdona Room for the ‘Introduction to Racing’ group to meet last Saturday morning to discuss ’Starting a Race’. This was pertinent after a number of Saturday mornings when the weather was obliging and many mini races were conducted, experience gained leading to an opportunity to examine and discuss the finer points of starting. All good fun especially with modern media projected onto the screen in the Macdona Room, of race 3, from a week ago, of the 18ft Foot Skiff Spring Series from Sydney Harbour.
Now that all their boats are safely ashore and tucked up in the shed ready for their winter maintenance, the Star class held their first “fireside chat” last Thursday in the bar. A dozen Star people – including quite a few novice star crews met in the bar and had a facilitated talk led by Nick Ledingham on the subject of “ the sailing area and the racing marks”. The idea of a fireside chat is that everyone has a chance to join in and ask questions as the chat goes along (or answer them!) in an informal way - over a glass of wine or two.
Last Thursday evening's Star Class 'Fireside Chat"
The next Star fireside chat is on Thursday, third of December on the subject of “ racing tactics round the course”
For many years, Helen Brown (herself a retired Star sailor) wanted an actual real open fire in the bar area, but sadly this never came to pass - so we had to make do with an imaginary fire! (It’s not too late to try again, Helen!)
Earlier that evening the Mirror Class WorkingGroup had been checking out one of the project Mirrors. Afterwards there was quite a list of items on the 'to do list’. It was a start.
You may recall from last week’s ‘Sailing Matters’, dear readers, that the 420 gang were going to travel to Royal Southern YC (Southampton) last week-end. Those storms were worse for northern Britain but sufficiently extensive to prevent getting afloat even in the sheltered waters of the Solent…. so ….. sadly that was cancelled on Thursday. The good news - they didn’t waste their time or money travelling down to the south coast. The bad news was that that they missed their sailing and the accommodation still had to be paid for.
Coming Up this Week-end:
We may get luckier this coming week-end. The forecast, so far, is favourable for going afloat. That will please the ‘Introduction to Racing’ group, Liverpool, Manchester and Bangor Universities, all of whom will be training on the lake on both days. Then there’s a Tidal Special on Saturday afternoon: HW 14:07 8.31M Start not before 12:30 Forecast SE 3 Kts (XCWeather), SE 8 Kts gusting 11kts (Met.Office) SE 10 Kts (Windy) - take your pick !
Saturday's forecast as at Wednesday (at the time of writing)
The question you have to ask yourself is “Do I feel lucky?” - Answer - “Yes if I go sailing”. You could be really lucky if you can brag to your friends (you have got some friends haven’t you? If no - that’s because you aren’t sailing enough !) that you have sailed on both days on the lake and on the tide ….. the lake on Sunday for the start of the Frostbite Series races 1 & 2 - first start 11:00. Only the ‘Introduction to Racing Group” could do all three - BUT will they ???
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Peter Williams, the club’s ‘Archivist’, does his level best to collect all activity in terms of human involvement in all matters related to sailing, to satisfy CASC (Community Amateur Sports Club) Eligibility. Behind everything we do regarding sailing, is some form of organisation. Through experience, training and coaching we do pretty well being an active sailing club. Although the club does employ two people it is basically a volunteer run club. The depth of volunteering is not quite as deep as you might think though it is quite wide. One obvious area is Race Officers, all of whom are willing volunteers (maybe not always willing even though they should be !).
The great joy of sailing is that it really does take you from cradle to grave or at least it can do and there are not that many sports that can say that. We have folk actively sailing and competing from aged 5 to 85 (and I’m sorry if there are some over 85 that I’m not aware of but it’s not that unlikely). Individually and together, club members can achieve great things from and for the sport of sailing and for the club. From time to time things can be challenging. I think we can all agree that two World Wars were challenging for the members at those times. I look back over my seventy seven years, seventy of which have been involved with sailing and I reflect how lucky I have been to enjoy a massive growth in the sport. For me this has mainly been through a boom period but in the last 20 years there has been at the very least, an easing of the boom. Some clubs have sadly folded. An ageing membership failing to find interest in todays world saw the closure of Weir Wood Sailing Club recently. Other clubs: Pilkington SC, Shearwater SC, Astbury Mere SC and Dan Skinner's old club Aldenham SC, have closed in the UK. This sadly is not unique to the UK. AI identified Bayshore YC, New Jersey, USA and British Kiel YC Germany also closed.
Dan's old club: Aldenham SC was Jack Holt and Ian Proctor's club at one time.
The point of mentioning all this is that at this time of the year there’s a lot of plotting and planning for the new season. I shall be standing down as Sailing Secretary at next January’s AGM but will continue in various roles in the club (if they’ll have me). In particular the Mirror Project will remain high on my agenda. I have been working on the Sailing Programme and will continue with this through to when it goes to the printers early in the new year. In the 2027 programme there will be Race Officers (RO) and Assistant Race Officers (ARO). This is an important step in training future race officers and amplifies the need for volunteers.
Never underestimate the membership ! Get talking to members and I am frequently amazed at the variety of sailing experiences people tell me about … some scary and some amazing - and from all over the world. WKSC remains incredibly well positioned as a town club with access to the Marine Lake and the Dee Estuary. What a great place to learn to sail and expand one’s sailing experience. I learnt to sail on that lake and its taken me to 3 x continents, 4 x countries to compete in sailing championships . As mentioned a week or so ago, it was Yiqiong Zhang, a new member who asked the question, 'Is it a problem that in today’s world folk look for instant feedback, predictability and control"? People don’t realise how much sailing delivers to children - those very attributes plus patience and consideration - so valuable in a changing world. That’s why we must tell ‘em and tell ‘em again … at our local schools, scout groups, sea cadets and anyone who’ll listen.
I have no doubt there will be a member who will take up the challenge of being Sailing Secretary. They probably wont have had my sailing experiences, maybe more, maybe less but its a wonderful job and can be varied to suit an individual. There’s plenty of support to fall back on. If you are interested come and have a chat with me.
Until next week then….
Tony Marston
Sailing Secretary
Last updated 20:17 on 28 October 2026