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by Jeremy Atkins, Club President
Some long-term members might describe Simon Odling’s progression at Draycote Water Sailing Club as ‘indecent haste’. He joined the Committee after just seven months of membership and became a flag officer a year later. But, with a lifetime of competitive sailing on the circuit and a successful business career, Simon’s ‘indecent haste’ has certainly been to the Club’s enormous benefit.
He comes from a family with sailing at its core. His father sailed and windsurfed, sailing home-built Fireballs, 505s and Lasers (now ILCAs) up to World Championship level in the 1970s and 1980s.
With this background, it was inevitable that Simon followed his footsteps and, sure enough, he first learnt to sail on holiday in France in an Optimist and on small catamarans. This was proceeded with Mirrors, Lasers and Simon says, “anything else going” on the Blackwater Estuary in Essex from Maylandsea Bay Yacht Club.
From the Club’s ‘Family Fun Weeks’, Simon progressed onto crewing for his uncles and father. In his teenage years, he crewed for an uncle as part of the Army Sailing Association in Bosuns, sailing in the Army Championships for a few years. He also crewed for another uncle and his father in the C-Fly class (how many remember them?) at both open meetings and the National Championships.
The next class was the one he sailed for the longest period, the single-trapeze Osprey, which is a great sea-going boat. He initially crewed for his uncle and then for his father for many years on the open meeting circuit. He had one season at the back of the boat.
During this time, Simon migrated from a wooden Mk2a boat (originally his grandfather’s!), to a competitive wooden Mk3 and then onto the very first Mk4 foam-sandwich boat. Over this period, they were heavily involved in boat and sail development.
They won open meetings and had good placings at the National Championships. During this period the fleet became even more family oriented as Simon’s wife, Melissa, joined in, crewing for his uncle.
But as the result of a growing family (three boys), as so many of us have, sailing took a backseat for a while as the children were growing up. Simon resorted to mountain biking and running to get his athletic ‘fix’.
Roll on a few years and, living in Warwick, he joined Draycote with his family in April 2022. Here he sails an ILCA and crews for his son, Bear, in their RS200 in the Menagerie fleet.
Simon is also back on the circuit again. He sailed on the ILCA inland circuit for a few years, doing the Inland Nationals and Masters Inlands. Last year he went one step further and joined the main ILCA circuit, sailing at Weymouth a few times and competing in the Masters Nationals and Europeans at Hayling Island.
With such a long experience of so many sailing clubs and events, Simon was ideally placed to contribute to the Club. As he put it, “I appreciated the work the Committee was doing and the welcome I had to the Club, but equally I could see the challenges the Committee were facing with reduced numbers at the time, and I felt I could offer some support.”
So, with all his experience, how does he view our Club? “The Club is welcoming and professionally run. The staff we have make the Club a huge success and we really do offer something no other clubs offer. The quality of the sailing area, the racing and the people really do make the Club what it is. As a professional club only supporting Race Office duty’s a couple of times a year is also a massive benefit for members compared to other clubs with thousands of volunteer duties to fulfil every year.”
And what about the challenges? “Maintaining and growing our membership is key to the long-term health of the Club. Equally the general climate of volunteering reducing across the country poses a challenge – we are a members’ run club, but if the members don’t want to run it then the needs of the Club operating in a financially sustainable way may mean the Club structure has to change.”
As a member of the Committee for the last 14 years, I would just comment that Simon has brought his professional skills to the Committee and he is a real asset. We are lucky to have him, however much ‘indecent haste’!
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