1

Merry Christmas!Merry Christmas!Merry Christmas!Merry Christmas!

Winter 2014 T h o r n b u r y S a i l i n g C l u b

TSC Newsletter Inside this issue:

Page 7: RIB news from Craig Phillips

Page 6: Sail Training from Martin Elms

Page 8: Social news and Frostbite

Page 9: U3A sailing

Page 10: Photos from TSC Facebook

Thornbury Sailing Club—Notice of Annual General Meeting

In accordance with rule 6.1 notice is given that the Annual General Meeting of the club will be held at the Clubhouse, Oldbury on Severn commencing at 20.00 hours on Thursday 8th January 2015.

AGENDA

1. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 2nd January 2014

2. Commodore’s report

3. Treasurer’s report 4. Hon Secretary’s report

5. Membership Secretary’s report

6. Election of President and Vice President 7. Election of Honorary Members

8. Election of Officers

9. Election of Committee

10. Election of Independent Examiner 11. Any other business notified to the Hon Secretary at least 48 hours before the start of the meeting

The January General Meeting will follow the Annual General Meeting.

Dave Morgan

Hon. Secretary Encl. Nomination Form

Phil & Jeremy arriving at Weymouth after their sail round Britain - see page 4 for Part II of their story

2

THORNBURY SAILING CLUB Nominations for Election at the Annual General Meeting

Thursday 8th January 2015

Nominations must be submitted to and reach the Honorary Secretary forty-eight hours before the start of the Annual

General Meeting. That is by 8.15 p.m. on Tuesday 6th January 2015. Nominees must have signified their willingness to serve and all nominees, proposers and seconders must be fully paid-up Full or Family Members. Members are reminded

that subscriptions became due on 1st October and that if they are not paid by 1st January [rule 5.4] membership may be

terminated.

Return completed form to: Mr Dave Morgan

Hon. Secretary TSC Robin Hill, Wick Lane, Stinchcombe, Glos GL11 6BG

Position Nominee Proposer Seconder

President

Vice President

Commodore

Vice Commodore

Honorary Secretary

Membership Secretary

Honorary Treasurer

Berthing Officer

Sailing Secretary

Sail Training Officer

Social Secretary

Safety Boat Officer

Bosun

Bar Steward

Committee

Committee

Committee

Committee

Committee

Committee

3

Commodore’s Report

This last part of the year has really been great fun. Three work parties and have seen an excellent turnout by mem-

bers. Some people have shown an extraordinary talent for

digging ditches, wielding hedge trimmers and making bonfires! I am not sure whether we should be worried

about the last two! We may need to replace the rake that

was burned in the bonfire by accident (no names men-

tioned here!).

The first session was sunny, warm & the BBQ, cooked by

JH2, rounded off the morning and added a sociable at-mosphere to the occasion. On our second outing, Joan

Booys led a successful winter tidy up of the dinghy park,

topped off with scrumptious cakes baked by herself and

Caroline Blakeney. The recent Work Party saw miserable weather but still a good turnout despite this and a ‘pie N a

pint’ to finish seemed to do the trick.

Apart from making the club house area tidy, it is a great

way of catching up with and getting to know other mem-

bers. Thank you to all you ‘magic fairies’, I was really encouraged by the support and hard work you all gave for

TSC.

On a serious note, the club house was broken into for the second time this season and the resultant damage was

again sorted out by volunteers -the clubhouse became CSI

with police forensics taking over for the morning. There were unfortunately far too many fingerprints for them to

be useful!

As a result of the break in members will see much im-

proved security. By now you will have seen information

about the new system on the Forum. Members can still

freely access the boat shed and clubhouse which are not alarmed so unless you go into the bar, RIB shed and cellar

the alarm should not be a problem.

The Annual Dinner Dance and prize giving was a big suc-

cess thank to the hard work of the Harvey family (Julie,

John and Sophie), our compere Gordon Craig and our

Sailing Secretary Paul Craig. It was very good to see so many members on the dance floor enjoying the fun. Con-

gratulations to all our trophy winners - they seem to get

younger every year!.....

There is still more excitement yet to come. We have the

Laying up Supper: ‘A Day at the Races’. We can look forward to having a bit of a flutter! Father Christmas is on

his way up the Severn and will be with us on the 13th De-

cember. The year will finish with the popular Thornbury

Freezer on the 28th December - so come down wrapped

up well and enjoy a chilly sail!

One can now sense the cruisers revving up for the hotly

contested Frostbite series. It is good to see both dinghy

and cruiser sailors getting together and enjoying the freez-ing cold and the early tides!

I cannot believe that this year has gone so quickly and we still have so much to do! Next year we hope to make

some progress with works on the clubhouse itself and to

the interior. The sailing programme has almost been final-ised and we have another great sailing programme to look

forward to.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year with good sailing in 2015!

Annie, Commodore

Editor’s Notes

Thanks again for your contributions to the TSC Newslet-ter, especially the Harvey family for yet another year’s

printing and mailing. The next issue is due in March and

articles, photos etc are welcome at any time.

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.

sarah.brankin@tesco.net 01454 850054

First of the Work Parties Photo posted by Annie Green

4

Hafren Round Britain (Part 2) Scrabster to Weymouth

Our Welcome at Scrabster was the first to include group-

ies. A few local Sailors who had been following our ad-

venture including one who had taken some photos of us passing Strathy point on the north coast. We spent a full

day re-supplying the boat, writing another press release,

catching up with navigation and making a few repairs. These preps cost us a day of progress but allowed us to

negotiate the Pentland Firth on the next morning tide.

The RNLI and Pentland Firth Yacht club had advised us on the tides and where we should expect the overfalls.

Following the local advice we left Scrabster at 9:00am but met breaking seas at Dunnet Head. After 20 minutes con-

ditions had improved indicating the back eddy had turned

in our favour. We reached the ‘Merry Men of Mey’ over-

falls at true slack water and passed through without taking on water, although it was still quite choppy. We were

soon at Duncansby head and able to turn south into the

North Sea. Making good speed in fresh broad reaching conditions we realised that we could cross the Moray

Firth towards Fraserburgh cutting off a huge corner.

There was a chance of a force 6 so we phoned Rob for a more detailed forecast which suggested that we could see

a force 6 but only for a short time after which the wind

would ease. It was now a race to get south before we lost

the wind or before it turned against us.

We crossed the Moray Firth in force 4-5 with following

winds and making very good progress. The conditions were perfect. That night, as we were passing Fraserburgh,

the winds built and with them the sea state. Soon we were

surfing down every wave in the steep seas even with reefed sails. I woke Jeremy just before we surfed down a

large wave half expecting the boat to broach as we hit the

back of the wave in front. Fortunately we stayed in con-

trol but decided to take the main down and continue under genoa until dawn. Once round the corner and heading

towards Aberdeen the seas flattened and we re-hoisted the

main. We had averaged between 5-6 knots all the way from Scrabster making brilliant progress and reached Ab-

erdeen after only 24 hours.

There was no time to stop and we carried on in easing winds and drifted through a second night. The following

day we cross the Forth estuary and reached Lindisfarne as

the wind died. This was our first landfall on English soil since leaving Weymouth. With the tide out we could walk

from the boat through the shallows to the shore. We

camped that night near the harbour with a great view of the Castle and Priory. The following day we were

awoken by a colony of seals. That day the winds died off

to nothing and we ended up paddling for 6 hours mostly

against the tide to our destination of Amble. We were met by a local lifeboat man and shown to the B&B. In these

stays ashore we would charge all the electronic devices,

some with several sets of batteries, and hand wash clothes. Jeremy may have reduced the life of a number of

hotel hair driers drying his boots out.

On our fifth day since leaving Scrabster we resupplied

topped up with water and repaired the floorboard hatch

again. The local boat yard kindly lent us use of their

workshop and offcuts to do this job which saved a lot of time. We then set off again towards Bridlington. The NE

force 3-4 gave us good reaching conditions and we made

fast progress on the direct course to Flanborough Head. Through the night we saw a few ships and came close to a

From www.xtremedinghycruising.com

The yellow line shows the route taken by Hafren

Scrabster •

Weymouth

• Fraserburgh

• Aberdeen

• Lindisfarne

• Bridlington

Lowestoft •

Dover •

Pentland Firth Choppy through The Merry Men of Mey

5

tug towing an oil production barge. Both vessels were lit up like Christmas trees making it impossible to see their

navigation lights and even tell which way they were head-

ing. We reached Bridlington the following afternoon,

entering the harbour well before the tide was high enough for a yacht. Here we met another pair of Wayfarer cruis-

ers and enjoyed the evening exchanging cruising tips over

fish and chips.

We left Bridlington at 5 hours after high water, a little

later than intended, but you can’t turn down a good cooked breakfast. In the harbour we were touching the

muddy bottom, requiring Jeremy to get out and push.

Eventually we sailed out of the harbour and set a course

across the Wash and towards Norfolk.

That night we were passed by ships leaving Grimsby and

the wind eased and headed us. The following morning (our eighth day since Scrabster) we were beating past

Cromer and the tide was turning. We made slow progress

down the coast. All the beaches were exposed to the east so there was no where to stop so we had to carry on hug-

ging the coast to keep out of the tide. The wind slowly

increased with the tide until it started raining and we ex-

perienced a full thunder storm. Now beating against a solid force 5 and the tide, we were going nowhere. Fortu-

nately we were able to creep through the sea defences to

reach the shelter behind and the village of sea Pailin. Af-ter two hours, some fish and chips and a chat with the

Lifeguards we set off again feeling much better. The rain

had cleared, the tide had turned and the wind had eased.

We passed Great Yarmouth making 8 knots over the ground and entered Lowestoft harbour shortly after the

wind had died for the evening. To avoid getting swept

past the entrance we paddled close to the shore letting the tide sweep us in under darkness. We received an almost

Royal welcome at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht

club, being invited into the members’ bar after we had cleaned ourselves up a little.

Having made such good progress we were on a mission to

get to Weymouth and set a really good time for sailing round Britain. With renewed enthusiasm we woke early

and packed the boat ready to leave on the early tide. We

were surprised and honoured to be met by Ralph Roberts of the Wayfarer Association. Having a wealth of dinghy

cruising under his belt he was interested to see how we

had set the boat up for our trip. We were keen to share some of our tales with him but soon it was time to go.

With the tide and light winds we made good progress

reaching Felixstowe Ferry on the river Deben by 2:00pm only to find the tide flowing south out of the river at 6

knots. The main tide was flowing north at 2 knots. The

harbour master gave us a tow from the mouth of the river

to the sailing club slip way. This stop was intended to be for a resupply only but as the wind had died to nothing

and was not forecast to stabilise till the morning we opted

to camp in the dinghy park. The club members were inter-

ested to hear our stories and lent us a launching trolley. This was the first time the boat had been out of the water

since Weymouth and a layer of green slime was forming

on the hull. The pan scourer was put to use removing the slime and making the hull look all shiny again.

At dawn the following morning we set of again but were out of phase with the tides. Having zigzagged across the

Thames Estuary to avoid wind farms and sand banks we

passed Ramsgate as the tide turned against us. Despite the

strong following wind the tide slowed our progress and it wasn’t until late afternoon the we reached Dover. The

Harbour Master allowed us through the main entrance of

Dover Harbour making a ferry wait. He also ‘Tweeted’ a picture of us.

After a cup of tea with some friends we set off again

heading for Lymington. The wind turned from the north east to the east and although it wasn’t too strong we made

steady progress. As we approached Dungeness a large

rain cloud bore down on us obscuring the land. Fearing the worst we reefed down but instead of strong winds we

just got very wet. This also made the night feel very cold.

Throughout the following day we passed the Seven Sis-ters, Newhaven, Shoreham and Selsey Bill. Finally we

had the Solent in sight but the tide was turning against us.

Amazingly we were able to fly the spinnaker all the way from Ryde to Lymington, crossing from the island shore

to the mainland shore after Cowes. Once in shallower wa-

ter and out of the tide we made better progress; however, we nearly sailed into an unlit groyne. One of the dangers

of dinghy cruising and being able sail in shallow waters is

the number of additional hazards you can hit.

We reached Lymington just after midnight and were es-

corted in by three dinghies, a kayak and two RIBs. This

night sailing might just catch on. Now we were nearing

White Cliffs of Dover

6

the end of the trip we had a lot of people following us on social media. We couldn’t muck it up now but did have

some strong tides and overfalls to sail through in a force 5

to reach Lulworth Cove. It was an amazing sail in famil-

iar waters and only took 4 hours. Jeremy’s brother met us at the beach and we off-loaded our kit and I sailed the

boat out to a mooring. Not having a dinghy I had to swim

ashore. The hotel was not just a dog friendly one but a dog obligatory one. We were the only guests without a

dog.

We were in high spirits for our final leg of 7 miles to

Weymouth. We had prearranged a finishing time 2 days

before and had time to spare so once near Weymouth we

did a victory loop, which can be seen on the tracker, be-fore entering the harbour. We were escorted in by two

yachts and 2 launches filled with friends and family. It

was a great welcome back to dry land.

During this adventure we covered 1666 nautical miles in

32 days 3 hours with a total sailing time of 19 days 12 hours. Our average speed was 3.66 knots which was not

far off our estimated speed. We had sailed through 15

nights. During the trip we had been out of sight of land

for several hours on 9 occasions, and sometimes up to 30 miles offshore. It would have been possible to complete

the trip in under 30 days but only with the experience we

had gained on the way round and the same conditions. We had been blessed by excellent sailing conditions and

weather, got close to the wildlife and been privileged with

some special views of the coastline and amazing sunsets.

Everyone has said this record is going to stand for a long time and will take a very dedicated team to beat it. What

the trip did prove to us is that ‘adventure dinghy cruising’

gives a great sense of freedom, it rewards good planning, decision making and perseverance with an immense sense

of achievement and some amazing sailing. Sailing at night

is do-able but a little more scary.

Phil Kirk

Off towards The Needles Improving the RIB Safety Boat cover at TSC

As we are all aware, the waters that we sail on at TSC are

safe until the day we ignore the dangers that are forever

present and when we fail to respect the risks.

With our two RIBs and a trained team, Thornbury Sailing club takes Safety Boat cover very seriously and maintains

a high investment in this area.

In 2014 this investment continues with two RYA Power-

boat Level 2 and one RYA Safety Boat course together with an RYA First Aid course being run in the earlier part

of the year.

Members are reminded, if you do not hold a RYA Power-boat Level 2 certificate you MUST NOT helm the RIB.

Helms are also reminded that the RIB must also have a

qualified and in-date First Aider onboard, this can either

be the helm or the crew.

We now have a club portal to store certificates for our

RYA trainers, RIB team and First Aid qualifications.

If we at TSC are ever questioned in regards to the compe-

tencies of trainers or safety cover teams we hope that this facility will help to demonstrate the investment that TSC

has made in its duty of care to its members.

Whilst this facility is up and running we are struggling in motivating HELMS AND CREWS to either send PDF

copies to tscribteam@gmail.com or pass me hard copy

photocopies of their certificates.

If YOU HAVE NOT DONE THIS YET please take this action NOW and help TSC improve its records.

If you are happy to save your own records to Google

drive you can do this via Log On tscribteam@gmail.com

Password thornburysc. Any problems please email me at tscribteam@gmail.com

Helms please do take action to assist me in this regard.

Wishing you safe sailing

Craig (Phillips) TSC Safety boat cover

7

TSC Sail Training

It has been a good year for sail training - the largest num-ber of adults ever for RYA 1 & 2, juniors achieving RYA

level 3 and a full course for Start Racing. Some of the

start lines on Start Racing were very impressive. We look forward to seeing this repeated in next year’s race series

and surprising a few of our regular competitors in the club

series!

We would all like to thank Jon Everett for the time and

dedication he has put in leading the adult course in recent

years. A special thanks to the Wednesday team for the work they put in maintaining the boats, which enables

these training programmes to run.

Looking ahead to the forthcoming season: Sarah Macgre-gor will take over leading the adult course; Henry Morgan

will lead the junior course, supported by Tom Macgregor;

John Harvey will continue to lead Start Racing, which is likely to run during July.

We will be sticking with the minimum age of 11 years for the junior course. This is due to the level of maturity re-

quired for the type of instruction and sailing conditions at

Thornbury. Size and weight of prospective sail training

juniors are other factors to be considered before signing your child up for the junior course. Please call me to dis-

cuss if required.

Included is the programme for 2015. We have secured

with Frampton on Severn what we hope will be a temper-

ate weekend to start sailing after the school Easter holi-days in mid April. The training then runs through May,

punctuated by a couple free Saturdays on the bank holi-

day weekends and into June. Do contact me if you are

interested in a place on a course in 2015 and, to avoid disappointment, don’t leave it too late!

Oppies The other big news at the end of this season is the arrival

of the Oppies. Thanks to Gordon Craig for securing a

fleet of 6 Optibats free of charge and Paul Craig for tow-

ing them up from Weymouth on a less than perfect trailer. How we will use these Oppies is still to be finalised,

though there will certainly be opportunities for people to

use these boats during Club Week, and hopefully some of the Free Saturdays next year. The Oppies might be used

for some sail training at TSC, but in order to sail against

the tide outside the Pill, Toppers will continue to be used as our main junior training platform.

Martin Elms

TSC Sail Training Officer Note*: Frampton have now confirmed ST1 and ST2 dates.

Session Date Start (BST)

H.W. (BST)

Height (m)

Comments

MARCH

Shore based

Sat 21 14:00 Welcome to TSC

APRIL

ST1 Sat 18 9:00 FOSSC*

ST2 Sun 19 9:00 FOSSC* (am)

ST3 Sat 25 9:45 12:44 5.9

MAY

ST4 Sat 9 9:00 11.44 5.9

ST5 Sat 16 16:30 19:26 8.8

ST6 Sat 30 15.30 18:30 6.6

JUNE

ST7 Sat 6 8.30 10:58 8.2

ST8 Sat 13 15:00 18:01 7.3 American Supper

Some Free Saturdays Added Below For Information

Free Sat 2nd May

19:55 7.9 Bank Holiday

Weekend

Free Sat 23rd May

11.49 7.1 Bank Holiday

Weekend

Sail Training Program 2015

High Water at Oldbury Pill, Tide height at Sharpness

The Oppies: Optibat dinghies

8

Winners of the Holms Race 2014 Barry Smith, Gary Chapman, Jon Everett Photo posted by Caroline Chapman

Bill and Maureen dressed for a Day at the Races

Social News

Late news: Thanks everyone who helped make last

night’s Laying-Up Supper such a good evening. A Day

at the Races was a great theme with entertainment well

managed by John Harvey and assistants John and Annie, and an excellent three-course meal created by Julie Har-

vey, Jenny Hale and their team. Great costumes everyone.

Father Christmas will be coming to the club on Saturday

13th December at around 11.30. Don’t forget to put your

cards in the postbox in the club house in plenty of time for distribution after his visit. There will be hot dogs,

mince pies and punch available so come on down and

enjoy the atmosphere!

Thornbury Freezer on Sunday 28th December - come

and sail or watch from a warm clubhouse. Ed

Photo from

Barry Leat

Cruiser Frostbite 2015

Dates to be confirmed

Race times to be announced

High Water Height

TSC Sharpness

JAN 11 (Sunday) 10.52 7.1m

JAN 25 (Sunday) 11.00 9.2m FEB 08 (Sunday) 10.00 7.8m

FEB 15 (Sunday) 16.22 6.0m

FEB 22 (Sunday) 10.00 10.1m

MAR 01 (Sunday) 16.47 5.7m MAR 14 (Saturday) 12.53 5.7m

Dates posted by Paul Craig

Tide times Avonmouth +25 mins & Heights Sharpness,

both according to Arrowsmiths

Ed

9

U3A Sailing group

After three years of Thornbury U3A Sailing I think we can say the group has found its feet, or its sea legs per-

haps. We started with only a handful of U3A members

keen to sail and assorted TSC skippers prepared to take the visitors out in their boats. Since then, dozens of U3A

guests have come along to take the opportunity once a

month to go out on the Severn with us. Seven TSC

cruiser owners now offer places on their boats when they can and several experienced TSC crews help out.

U3A, an association of interest groups for retired people, is very active in our area and the newly formed Sailing

group soon took off. We quickly decided that cruisers

rather than dinghies were our thing, and a pleasant sail in

good company with a competent skipper made for a per-fect outing, especially if it included a trip up to Berkeley

Pill or Woolaston to tie up for a cup of tea before the

cruise home. Once every summer we also venture down to Cardiff or Flat Holm and back for a whole day out.

Each month I collect a small donation from the non-TSC guests to give to the club for use of the facilities, and the

skippers are quite happy to take them out for a trip as we

all enjoy an extra week-day sail when the club facilities

aren’t in use and no other sailing is organised. After sail-ing we generally head over to the Anchor for lunch or a

drink if the tide is at a convenient time of day. Having

just come to the end of a very successful season this year with our sail on November 28th, we met for a pre-

Christmas lunch at the Anchor attended by the hardier

winter sailors among us as well as a good number of those who prefer a log fire in the colder months!

New members welcome from both TSC and U3A. Full

details on U3A website at www.thornburyu3a.org.uk: click on ‘Groups’ then ‘Sailing’.

Sarah Brankin

A U3A sail to Berkeley Pill in the summer Photo from a U3A guest

Above: The new work platform spotted at the Narlwood Lights Photos posted by Rob Hudson after U3A sail on 31st October

Above: Arriving at Woolaston to tie up for a cuppa

Below: Guests enjoying a lively sail home on ‘Imagine’

10

YW Dayboats visit Brims Pill on 12th September Three photos posted by Rod Howell

Sunset on 30th September - What a summer that was Posted by Fergus Macgregor

Work party16th November Two photos posted by Craig Phillips