read our club news

Congratulations to our latest National Champions Dave Hall, Emilie Hood and Heather Chipperfield who won the closely contested K6 National Championships held at Mylor Yacht Club from 15-18 September.

Dave said that Mylor YC put on a great event in a great setting and thanked Heather and Emilie for successfully getting them around the racetrack to victory. He reported that there was great sailing in strong wind on the first day but it was all a bit stressful on the following shifty days. You can read the Yachts and Yachting report here

On 10-11 September Blackwater Sailing Club hosted the Wayfarer Eastern Championship combined with a Snipe open meeting. An excellent fleet of 15 Wayfarers including 6 visitors contested the event. Congratulations to winning team of Andrew & Tom Wilson from Datchet Water SC with an excellent 2^nd by Steve Perkins and Martyn Hare flying the flag for BSC. Six races were run over the weekend from a downriver committee boat allowing competitors to enjoy the beautiful racing area between Osea and Northey Islands. We received some fantastic feedback after the event and here are a couple of quotes:

Tim from UKWA said “we had a really enjoyable weekend at BSC. I had as much fun as I can remember at an open meeting but whether this was down to the favourable weather, the excellent race management, the warm welcome we received from your club or the fact that the tide limiting sailing time maximises the bar opening time I really can’t decide. Probably a bit of everything!”

Another sailor said “The Easterns, held at BSC was an absolutely wonderful weekend; very many thanks to Steve Perkins and his team both on and off the water. It was very much enjoyed by all those taking part with warm weather, super hospitality and competitive racing.”

The Yachts & Yachting report can be seen here

9 Snipes, including 7 visitors contested their South Eastern Championship with some of the boats crewed by BSC cadets. Congratulations to the winning team of Peter Wolstenholme from Bough Beach SC crewed by Charlie Bourne with a strong 3^rd place by Richard and Debbie Marshall as first BSC boat.

The results can be seen here

The full report by Richard Marshall can be seen here

Simon from the Snipe fleet said, “thank you for making me so welcome, I had a bloody brilliant time!”

Pictures © Zoe Nelson, Clemency Evans

Blackwater Sailing Club is deeply saddened by the death of Queen Elizabeth II and extends our heartfelt condolences to King Charles III and the Royal Family.

After careful consideration, we decided to proceed with the Wayfarer Eastern Championships and Snipe Open meeting on the weekend 10-11 September. Before the briefing, the Commodore gave the following tribute to The Queen and led a minutes silence.

"I would like to pay tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II following her passing on Thursday 8 September. She was our longest serving Monarch and reigned for 70 years so for most of us she is the only Monarch we have known. She demonstrated a wonderful sense of duty and dedicated her life to service of the people of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She represented much of what makes Britain Great and so admired around the world.

While 15 Prime Ministers came and went the Queen was always there as a steadying hand on the tiller throughout many difficult times for the country and her own family. It is testament to her devotion to duty that she continued her work right up to the end when she welcomed our new Prime Minister.

The Royal Family have a long history of involvement with and support for sailing. The Queen was Royal Patron of the RYA, her husband HRH Duke of Edinburgh was former president of the RYA and the Princess Royal is the current president of the RYA.

King Charles III now takes the helm and will today be proclaimed King. I have every reason to believe that the monarchy is in safe hands and he will prove a worthy successor to his mother.

As we mourn the Queen, I would be grateful if you could join me in a minutes silence to show our respect and reflect on what this truly remarkable lady meant to us.

God save the King"

Nigel Butler

Commodore

The second heat wave of the year heralded our annual Club Week which ran from 13-19 August. Events started with the Regatta with 103 boats entered and 166 sailors across 10 fleets. The canons were used for starting and the entrants had great racing in champagne conditions with a steady f4 easterly wind.

The crabbing competition got under way while the races were on and when the fireballs finished the ever popular ‘greasy pole’ competition started. A variety of other inshore games included swimming races and the cork race. The prize giving was held late afternoon and then many members stayed on to enjoy a delicious hog roast.

As the heatwave broke down, we had mostly good but very shifty sailing winds for most of the week including two days when the wind was gusting f6 which tested the heavy weather skills of our sailors and kept our safety fleet busy. We had a record 128 boats racing crewed by 202 sailors and started 69 races during the week. The largest fleet was the Medium Handicap which had 13 different classes and 31 boats, then the Lasers with 23, then the Wayfarers and Toppers/Teras both with 14. It was great to see so many of our cadets taking part across the fleets and in many cases beating the adults! At the end of the week, the winner of each class took part in a race in Toppers on the river to decide the Cock O’ the Club – amazingly, this was won by talented international Optimist sailor Callum Marshall who at the age of 10 beat the club’s finest helms!

After a tiring time on the water, we ran a full social programme and over 100 members enjoyed the ever popular Quiz on Tuesday night. Big thanks to Hatty for doing the quiz and for Drac and Marc for helping on the night.

The Commodore supper on Wednesday was Pirate themed with some great fancy dress. The evening started in the lower deck with lashings of Tommy’s secret ‘Dark and Stormy’ rum punch which created a warm glow! Excellent food from Maldon’s Chinese restaurant ‘The House of Delight’ and live music from the Hopkirks who really got the guests dancing the night away. Thank you to the cadets who helped serve the food and looked after us so well.

Overall, one of our best club weeks for years and many thanks to Steve Perkins our Sailing Secretary, Sheena Berney our Rear Commodore and all our staff and volunteers who worked so hard to make it such a safe and successful event.

Congratulations to our winners from each class:

Optimist: Callum Marshall - 5931 “Victory”

Mirror: Jessica Finch & Florence Pickering - 70223

Topper/Tera: Josephine Bernard – Tera Sport 2632

Fireball: Charlie Stewart & Sue Gibson - 14905 “Walkabout 3”

Fast Cruiser: John Dyer & crew - 1889 “Breezy”

Fast Handicap: Terry Crook – Phantom 1464 “Ghostbuster”

Medium Handicap: Ian Smith – Solo 5545

Laser: Ted Coday – Laser Radial 200489

Wayfarer: Martyn Hare & Steve Perkins - 11305

Sprite: Martin Scarth & Tricia Parker – 33 “Jack O’Lantern”

Club Cruiser: George Whitchurch & Jonathan Payne – “Ffumbler”

Full results for the week can be found on our website here

Photos © Nigel Butler, Iain Marshall, Hatty Norman, Tracy Haigh, Peter Gould

On Sunday 24 July, Blackwater SC welcomed 150 cadets aged 8 to 18 to our first Cadet Week for 3 years unrestricted by Covid. The cadets, their parents and the cadet team packed into our new upper deck club room for the daily briefings. 57 cadets were in lake training groups, 43 in river training groups and 50 in MG race groups split across six fleets. For the team activities, they were divided into six colour groups led by the Cadet Committee. Training groups worked towards the cadet badge, RYA levels 1-4 and seamanship skills. River training was provided for optimists, toppers, teras and lasers by our experienced team of instructors and assistants. Racers were supported by our team of race coaches and races were run from our club line with one down river day with a committee boat start.

Historically, cadets would start their training aged 8 learning in optimists on the lake. Increasingly, cadets are now joining the club as teenagers and are too big for an optimist! To cater for this trend we used our fleet of RS Quests supplemented with Wayfarers to provide training for older beginners and intermediates in addition to the RYA level 4 and seamanship training.

Conditions were great for sailing during the week ranging from a gentle force 2 to challenging force 6. The emphasis on the week was having fun and the team activities included lake games, field games, treasure hunt and the tractor pull. Evening social events included a gala dinner and disco.

The final day began with the fancy dress competition with some amazingly creative costumes. While the judging was happening, the Cock of the Cadets races took place with the winners of the river race series battling it out for top-spot. This was followed by the parents race challengingly held in Optimists. In the afternoon, over 200 cadets and helpers in 120 boats set off for a cruise to Maldon where vast quantities of ice creams were consumed!

Our chosen charity to support during the week was the Tall Ships Youth Trust (TSTY) and their chairman David Aisher gave an introductory talk about the work of the trust. During the week, Rafe organised a raffle which raised a splendid £809.35 which was donated to the TSYT.

Huge thanks to our Cadet Skipper Paul Trickey for putting together and delivering a brilliant and safe Cadet Week supported by the Cadet Committee, our instructors, coaches, assistants and the many volunteers who make this wonderful week possible for our young sailors.

Racing results:

Laser 4.7 – 181374 – Hugh Andrews

Laser Radial – 2 – Nick Evans

Optimist – 5931 – Callum Marshall

Topper/Tera – Topper 44412 – Robert Gardner

Medium Handicap – RS Feva BSC2 – Bella Elderton & Garci Lefranc

420 – 53332 – Jess Haigh & Lucy Shelter

Cock of the Cadets: Hugh Andrews

The full results can be seen on our website here

Members can read a detailed report from the Cadet Skipper here

Many congratulations to our talented 17 year old Blackwater Sailing Club cadet sailor Charlie Dixon who has been crowned iQFoil Youth World Champion at the Youth World Championships in the Hague held from 8-15 July 2022.

Having become iQFoil Youth National Champion at the RYA Youth National Championships held at Plas Heli, Pwllheli in April 2022, Charlie joined the 16 members of the GB team who raced at the Hague against 450 of the world’s best youth sailors from 69 countries.

The Hague was Charlie’s first ever international event and he went there without any great expectations. He completely dominated the male iQFoil class at the event notching up eight wins from 11 races to seal the title by a staggering 16 points. Charlie was the only member of the GB team to wind gold at the event from the 12 classes contested. The full results can be seen here

Charlie is a great ambassador for the Club and when he is not at a championship, he can be seen practising and training on the Blackwater Estuary. This is deserved reward for all his hard work and commitment to this exciting Olympic class.

On Sunday 10 July the club held its New Members Day. 60 new members, 41 adults and 19 children attended and met at the lake at 11am. Alan Coday Senior Instructor and Sheena Berney Rear Commodore gave an introductory talk about the club and a briefing on how the day would work.

New members were invited to go out in the club Quests helmed by volunteer members. The wind was very light and getting back across the lake was sometime quite a challenge but everyone that wanted a sail was accommodated. When not on the lake instruction was given on the simulator.

The Commodore Nigel Butler, Vice Commodore Alan Hoy and member volunteers chatted to the new members, answering any questions they may have had and explaining about the adult and cadet training we have available. New cadets were not forgotten and many went out in an Optimist with Natasha Adkins who sailed the whole morning.

At 1pm everyone went up to the main terrace and was able to enjoy a tasty BBQ which was prepared by more volunteer members. With the bar open and good food conversation flowed and everyone seemed to be having a good time, making new friends and enjoying the facilities that the club offers.

Thanks must go to all the members of the club who gave up their time to organise and run this day and I hope the new members enjoyed themselves and I look forward to seeing them again at the club.

Linda Ogburn

Membership Secretary.

Saturday 9 July was a glorious warm, sunny day for my second Commodore’s Cruise. Many thanks to Allan and Belinda who allowed me to use their Sabre 27 as flagship for the day. We loaded up “Kalyba” with essential provisions of prosecco, lager, beer and vast amounts of food. Gradually boats appeared from everywhere and at 08:30 a fleet of 25 boats including a wayfarer, several dayboats and a selection of cruisers with 64 people and 2 dogs set sail in a pleasant f3-4 NNE wind for an easy broad reach with the ebb tide to Osea Pier where we anchored for breakfast.

Five cruisers had volunteered as cafés and once anchored set to producing bacon butties including a new for 2022 pescatarian fish finger butties option from café Akela. Orders were taken over Ch 37 and a delivery service was provided by Rob and Zoe who were escorting the fleet in yellow RIB. As we feasted, the wind gradually freshened to F4-5. At 10:30 the fleet slowly hauled up muddy anchors and set off for a lively broad reach past Thirslet and onto Bradwell. We were overhauled by a number of yachts including Nigel Clarke’s new Beneteau 30.1 “Puffin,” Kane Gooch’s beautiful 1889 oyster smack “Katie” and Steve Kuhl’s’ Dehler 42 “Sunbeat VI’ warming up for the ARC.

About a mile past Bradwell, we anchored off Weymarks Beach and Rob and Zoe did an excellent job providing a taxi service ashore. The champagne corks were soon popping as everyone tucked into their picnics and got the BBQs going. As the tide turned, the wind suddenly veered to the East as the sea breeze arrived. Artemis and Shamrock laid on a demonstration of dragging their anchors but both dug in again without the crews having to interrupt their lunch!

Eventually the cool boxes were emptied of alcohol and the gluttony finished, the post prandial somnolence slowly wore off and we gathered for a fleet photo and then onto beach games organised by Zoe. I led our team away for the egg and spoon race and despite a slow start, Harrison surged to victory on the anchor leg. The sack race and three-legged race were hilarious particularly when Karen and Tony did their usual trick of capsizing and falling on top of one another laughing.

As the sun continued to beat down, we decided it was time to decamp. Larkabout’s crew gave a demonstration of the challenges of rowing their tender against a brisk wind and flood tide. Tony seemed oblivious of the fact that his course over the ground was backwards but Rob spotted his plight and gave him a helpful tow. The fleet set off with the flood tide for another exhilarating downwind sail in the f4-5 ENE. As we passed Thirslet spit and gybed downwind past Marconi the wind freshened and was gusting f6 at times. We had a great sail home and arrived in time to get on the mooring by 18:00 and soon back ashore.

I would like to thank everyone who joined me on the cruise and helped make it a most enjoyable and successful occasion.

Photos © Nigel Butler, Zoe Nelson, Belinda Sturge

Blackwater Sailing Club enjoyed a fantastic week celebrating the 70th anniversary of the accession Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and marking her wonderful achievement of 70 years on the throne.

From Monday 30 May to Friday 3 June our growing fleet of mirrors joined the sprites for their annual racing week. 8 Sprites competed with overall winners David Nichols & Christine Mills. An impressive 18 mirrors entered with overall winners Julie Nelson & Kiley Gooch.

On Thursday 2 to Friday 3 June we held Platinum Jubilee Series racing with light to moderate winds on day 1 but particularly challenging F4-6 winds on day 2 testing out heavy weather skills. 19 boats entered the main fleet with overall winner Terry Crook in his phantom. The short series was contested by 17 boats with Andy & Florence Pickering overall winners in their mirror. Club racing continued on Saturday and Sunday.

Over 100 members enjoyed the warmest day of the Jubilee holiday on Friday 3 June at our Platinum Jubilee Street party which came at the end of the 2 day Platinum Jubilee Race Series and Sprite & Mirror Week. The clubhouse was bedecked in flags and bunting and 3 long rows of decorated tables were set up, tea was provided, the bar was open and members were asked to bring a selection of food. An impressive banquet ensued with tables laden with a delicious selection of home cooked produce. The "Best Jubilee Hat" competition was keenly contested and won by Jan Nuttall. Our younger members enjoyed various games. In the evening, the BBQs were lit and many stayed on to enjoy a pleasant evening on the patio.

On Saturday 4 June we held a highly successful Optimist Open meeting with F5-6 winds providing particularly challenging conditions for the main fleet who had a committee boat start East of Northey Island. The 19 main fleet entrants, including 5 visitors, enjoyed 4 exhilarating races with Hugh Andrews the clear winner with 4 bullets! Due to the conditions, the Regatta fleet raced on the lake and managed 6 races. The 9 entrants including 3 visitors enjoyed some close racing with Daniel Hall emerging victorious. The weekend was rounded off with team racing on the lake on Sunday morning.

Many thanks to those who worked so hard to make the week such a success both on and off the water.

Photos © Nigel Butler, Tracy Haigh & Jake Fairhead

Be aware that licence has been granted to the Natural Trust to undertake works as part of conservation adaptation works to the north east and south east of Northey Island. Works are licenced between 13 June 2022 and 30 September 2023.

You can read and download the full notice here