Commodore's Newsletter March 2021
Published 16:53 on 1 Mar 2021
Commodores News Letter early March 2021
Happy St. David's Day! As you can imagine I am a very happy Welshman today, partly thanks to a certain French referee, but more importantly we have a re-opening date, Monday 29th March. Put it in your diary and get ready to hit the water!
Reopening, Assuming that everything goes well from a Covid point of view Spinnaker Club will be reopening on Monday 29th March, We know that this will prove popular, so we will have a safety boat ready to go all day and James Oborne will be on hand for advice and assistance. These arrangements will continue on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. Organised training and racing will commence on Good Friday, 2nd April. In addition James will be around to help members get their craft out on the water.
We will be emailing out the new gate and clubhouse codes on 28th of March to all paid up members.
Please note that initially only the lavatories will be open and the rest of the clubhouse will be out of bounds.
It is important that everyone observes the current regulations on social distancing and group sizes as we certainly don't want to be shut down after all this effort.
Our Covid risk assessments are available to view on the website in the members section.
Training. Good Friday will see the start of 2021's training programme. James will be running his usual induction course for his instructors and so they will be raring to get started. All details of courses are on the website. Places are likely to get taken up quickly.
Hire. All our boats, kayaks and SUPs will be available to hire from Monday 29th March but must be booked and paid for online. This is so that we can ensure that they are properly sanitised between use and aren't double booked. They are all in tip top condition after their winter maintenance.
Racing. We kick off racing in 2021 with a short informal race on Good Friday afternoon.
Last year's experiences showed us that pursuit races are easier to run in a Covid safe manner so we will mainly be using this format to start with. Last year's experiment of running all the slower classes on a separate pursuit schedule, so that their races are of a sensible length, proved very popular so we will be continuing this system in 2021.
On Easter Sunday we will run two pursuit races as the Greyfriars Cup and on the 11th and 18th April we will run a pursuit race in the mornings and three sprint handicap races in the afternoons.
The popular Wednesday evening series restart on 7th April and will be preceded by a preparatory talk on Wednesday 24th March, this talk will also include a general welcome to the Club for all new members. Details to follow.
We will plan racing after that based on experience, feedback and government guidance. A draft programme is on the website for the remainder of 2021.
See the website for details.
New Administrator/Senior Instructor. I am pleased to announce that Neil Franklin is joining our staff in March to take on this combined role that will allow us to improve our service to you. Neil is very experienced and will prove to be a great addition to the team. I am sure that you will join me in welcoming him to Spinnaker.
Modernising the fleet. Despite the difficult times we find our selves in the Club's managers are starting the job of modernising the fleet and ensuring that it is fit for purpose. We will shortly be acquiring a fleet of 6 Fusion dinghies which will give a big boost to the training and hire fleet. Our next task is to modernise the power boat fleet.
eSailing. The virtual racing continues on Sunday is continuing to be popular.
Congratulations to Steve Chapman who won our last series and went on to represent us at the RYA Southern regional event.
Wednesday Evening talks. We have had some excellent talks, most recently by Barry Sadler, detailing the jaw dropping work of a Southampton Pilot.
This Wednesday we have Bob Chapman giving a talk about the ecology of Blashford Lakes. Bob is extraordinarily knowledgeable on the subject and I think that this should be a really interesting talk. You can find the Zoom link on the members section of the website.
Last updated 09:41 on 20 December 2023
