Avon Sailing Club

Newsletter

May 2022

Dear Avon Sailing Club Members,

We’re well into to 2022 sailing season now so I’d like to spend a few moments to let you all know what’s been happening and what’s coming up over the next few weeks. In my last newsletter, just prior to the working parties, I made the unfortunate mistake of provoking the weather gods with this...

“I won’t tempt fate but it would be nice not to have to start the working party this year by plucking boats and kayaks from the trees!”

...and less than a week later we’d lost a third of the Clubhouse roof and suffered some serious internal rain water damage. We then had 2 weeks of flooding! I’ll come back to where we are with the Clubhouse repairs later but for now I’d like to thank everyone again who helped fixing the temporary roof and stripping out the damaged walls. It has meant that the building was saved from further damage and allowed it to dry out quickly.

Sailing

We are about a third of the way through our Sailing Programme for this year already. We’ve completed a number of club trophies and the results for these can be found on the website. We also hosted the Aero National River Championships and the Yachting World Day Boat open meeting earlier this month. Both events were very well supported and the feedback from several visitors was extremely complimentary. Many thanks to everyone involved in the running of those events and the evening BBQ socials. I’ll leave the links below to the Yachts & Yachting write ups for both events.

https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/248859/RS-Aero-UK-River-Championships-at-Avon

https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/249237/Avon-SC-Yachting-World-Dayboat-Open

It’s our Ladies Day racing this coming weekend followed by something a little different for the Jubilee weekend. The poster for the Jubilee event will come out shortly but to give a hint of the sailing planned we are looking to have 2 boat match racing (a la America’s Cup) and team racing. These will be mixed ability crews to keep the events light hearted so please come along and join in the fun. Not forgetting it’s the Captain’s Warming Pan (best starters trophy) on the Sunday. Noisy spectators are most welcome too!

Training

We’ve had 2 training sessions so far this year with another planned for 18^th June. I would encourage anyone who wants to learn how to sail or improve your skills to come along. We have a number of qualified RYA L2 Race Coaches now who will be on-hand to give advice and guidance to ensure the learning processes is as safe and fun as possible. Club boats and buoyancy aids are available to borrow so don’t let the lack of equipment put you off.

Social Events

Not to be deterred by the lack of facilities inside the Clubhouse, the Social Committee has hit the ground running and we’ve ticked off the first 2 BBQ socials of the year. These were organised in conjunction with the Aero and Dayboat events and were very popular with our members too. We were blessed with some decent weather and many thanks to everyone who helped make those evenings a great success.

Next up is the Jubilee weekend. The flyer for this will be out shortly and we have a fire pit evening on the Thursday and a Kings & Queens party on the Saturday. Time to dig out those union jack flags.

Hot on the heels of the Jubilee is the Commodores Party on June 25^th. After 2 years of COVID restrictions, we are back to previous format of a 3 course, seated, meal in the marquee. This is a ticket only event and flyer for this will follow soon. I’ve seen the menu and having had some it explained to me now, you won’t be disappointed!

The full list of social events is below.

Camping

Campsite Layout

Over the past few weeks the Committee has taken some time to review the Clubs’ need to comply to the latest regulations in regards to camping on site. Over the past few years camping have become more and more popular at the Club. There are UK safety regulations surrounding the minimum spacing of caravans / campers / tents etc and with the increased demand for camping we now need to be a little more prescriptive as to where members can camp. Seasonal caravans have already been made aware of the need relocate somewhat to maximise the available space to ad-hoc campers. This will happen over the coming days and you’ll also see some new white lines on the camping field to indicate where the pitches will be.

You will also soon see some new Fire Points located around the campsite. Please take a few moments to familiarise yourself with your closest one and the equipment provided.

We are working through this process so bear with us please. If you intend to camp for the Jubilee weekend, it would be really helpful to let myself or Andrew Huntly know in advance.

Electric Hook-ups

Hopefully you will have seen my recent email about increasing the daily electric hook-up fee to £2.50. In addition to the cost of electricity I also mentioned the need for campers to minimise the demand on the Club’s limited electricity supply. To follow on from that, if you are able to be self-sufficient whilst camping that would be a great help. This will also help minimise the number of cables running across the campsite.

Clubhouse Update

I’ll finish with a quick update on where we are with the Clubhouse repairs. The insurers have declared the clubhouse “dry” so we are now able to proceed with repairs. We have had agreement from our insurers to cover 2/3rds of the cost replacing the roof with rubber rather than repair the old roof. Work on installing the new roof is scheduled to start in early June. We are in the process of getting quotes for the reinstatement of walls, flooring and replacing the kitchen but the work for those can’t start until the roof is complete.

In the process of stripping back the walls it has revealed some historical damage to the timber framework and wooden flooring near the gents which I’m pleased to report has been repaired. Thanks to Andrew and Rob for completing those repairs.

As part of the Club Development programme it was always our intention to make improvements to the Clubhouse facilities over the next few years. The roof damage and subsequent internal repair work has brought some of those items forward somewhat. Whilst the walls are stripped back and the roof about to be replaced, the Committee will look to bring forward the plans to insulate those parts of the building currently exposed. Similarly, with the rear galley wall exposed, we are going to take the opportunity to replace the windows and doors with uPVC.

Rest assured there is lots going on with regards to restoring the Clubhouse and I thank you all for your patience whist we work through this.

I hope to see you at the Club soon. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.

Peter Keighley

Commodore

Dates For The Diary