The Osea room bar opens at 19:00 and the talk starts in the main upper deck club room room at 19:30

Valentine's themed cocktails available at the bar!

No need to book, just turn up. Non members from other sailing clubs welcome. 

Falling in Love with a Thames Barge by Don Baines

Flat-bottomed Thames sailing barges carried cargoes along the East Coast, across the North Sea and the English Channel, and all the way down to Cornwall for more than two hundred years. It’s now more than fifty years since the last ones plied their trade, yet around thirty of these still survive under sail, at least six from Maldon’s Hythe.

My talk will examine why so many current sailors are lured by the attraction of sailing these historic craft, and how my love-affair with them ran alongside the enjoyment of sailing my own boat around the rivers and creeks of the Thames estuary.

I’ll explain how a craft with 3,000 square feet of sail could be sailed by just two men, and navigate up the shallowest creeks, staying upright to load or unload when the tide left her, but still sail into the wind with minimum leeway once in deeper water.

For those whose pleasure in sailing lies in racing I’ll also be looking at Thames Barge Matches. After the America’s Cup, the annual Thames Match is the second longest- running sailing race in the world.  With around a dozen barges taking part and each one displacing between fifty and eighty tons, close-quarters racing is especially exhilarating !

Don Baines