Sailability
Newsletter April 2009
Ringwood Visit.
We were the guests of the New
Forest members at Spinnaker Sailing Club, Ringwood on April 3
We took three of our own
Accesses but were also lent two brand new boats.
Volunteers took to the water
too, joining up with Sussex Sailability helms.
We returned with 3rd and 4th
places out of 10 competitors in the Access 303 class. Richard Jackson , a past
Commodore of SYC won the 2.3 class .
All this was a prelude to the
hope that the two groups would be getting together in a combined bid for the
Ben Ainslie Team Trophy.
Ben, Olympic Gold winning
helmsman, has presented his trophy to focus on the advances made in disabled
competition. He wants to promote competence and skill with a view to increasing
success in the Paralympics, The fraternal visit did much to encourage all the
sailors and helpers to savour the enjoyment that racing, it’s discipline and
team spirit can add to the sport.
Pat takes on the sharks
for us.
On Sunday the 3rd
May Pat Ditton will be one of 1,000 swimmers entering one of Australia’s most
gruelling swimming challenges the 2009 Ocean Classic. 2000 metres of pounding surf from Wategoes Beach to
Main Beach, Byron Bay. Two
safety boats will be out on ‘shark patrol’ and the swim will be accompanied by
lifesavers on water skis.
The competitors assemble on
Wategoes Beach, their outer garments are left on the beach when they take the
plunge and collected later by volunteers and donated to the Salvation
Army. No one yet has said that will
swim back to collect them!
Pat has been training hard
for the event in Shoreham’s Wadurs Pool starting with a modest 30 lengths and
progressing up to 80 lengths twice a week.
Before she left for Australia
she said “I hope I have built up sufficient stamina for the sea conditions.
I will be sharing the swim with turtles, rays and a variety of fishes,
but hopefully no sharks."
Pat is raising sponsorship
for Sailability the Shoreham based Club that enables disabled people to sail.
Boat Jumble
The
boat jumble was a great success. The total raised to date is £645. We were so
pleased we plan to run a second one on Saturday 10 October in conjunction with
our last sailing session so be prepared to dig out the next lot of jumble for
that day. On the same day we will be running a street collection in Shoreham so
we will be finishing the season with a flourish.
New seasons plans
As I said in my last newsletter this year we are experimenting with
Group sessions. These are days when we plan to take out people from care homes.
We plan to restrict the boats used to powerboats and Marky. We do not plan to
have safety boat cover on these days. On Sailability days we will only have
limited capability to take out groups so it is important to book ahead.
First sessions
We have had one group session and two Sailability days so far this
year. The weather has been fine during each day but early rain may have put a
few people off. We had a small attendance at the group session and number built
up to 18 for the Saturday Sailability day. It was good to see Sheila back in a
boat after her fall.
Open days
We are running our open days as usual this year. We will have up to ten
volunteers from Goldman Sachs with us: It is good that they have weathered the
financial storms and so are in a position to continue to support us.
ALL are welcome on this day and we will be running all our boats so
please come and bring your friends. It is always a help if you can let Martin
know if you are coming. This year we will have at least one yacht so people can
try sailing in a larger boat.
Lunch will be provided as usual.
Come at 11.45 on June 12th and/or June 26.
Sailing week
Our sailing week will run from Mon 6th to Thursday 9th
July.. We will be running the usual mixture of sailing and shore based
activities.
Please let Martin know if you want to come.
Contact details
Martin: 01273 326560
Yacht Club: 01273 464868
secretary@sussexyachtclub.org.uk