Welcome to November’s edition of the Club’s monthly newsletter.
Webcams & Weather Station
As many will know, these sadly stopped working early this summer. The webcams came back into operation in August, but we realised we had not communicated this fact. So, if you hadn’t realised, the webcams are available on our website once again. Click here and see!
The committee has agreed to purchase a Windguru weather station and this will be installed and in operation in the coming months.
Winter Season / Series
For the racers amongst you, last Sunday (23rd October) saw the last day of the Summer Series and, with the clocks going back, next Sunday (30th October) is the first day of the Winter Series.
Race 3 drops from the programme, but the timing of the other races stays the same:
- Warm Up Race: Warning signal: 1015
- Race 1: First warning signal: 1100
- Race 2: First warning signal: 1315
The only change to these is that the Warm Up Race will now be a Windward / Leeward course (following on from the success of Race 3 this summer) and there will be one start.
The OOD instructions have been updated to reflect these changes and are available on the website and in the OOD pack each week.
Signing Onto The Water
Those of you who have read the latest Draycote Unshackled Magazine may have read about the importance of us being able to measure who participates in the sport how often to ensure that we continue to receive significant (£13k) rent rebate for being a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC).
However, some members are thwarting this by either signing on with just their first name, their nickname or illegibly or not signing on at all. Unfortunately writing in Richard, Rich or Mad Dog gets us nowhere! We cannot include such people in our participation figures and, as a result, may lose this benefit. To cover this, membership fees would have to go up by at least 10%.
Please sign on clearly with your full name and the full names of any crew members.
AGM & Committee
This Wednesday sees the close of nominations for the Committee. Currently it looks like the number of people on the Committee will again shrink by one. If the trend of the last few years continues, there will be no-one on the Committee in 5 years’ time!
Even if you are too late for a nomination by Wednesday, if you would like to contribute to running the Club, please talk to Jeremy Atkins or another Committee member. Too few are taking this opportunity to help the club currently.
The AGM is on Wednesday 9th November at 7.30pm. Even if you can’t spare the time to help contribute to the running of the Club, please support your Committee by attending this. We will be outlining the Club’s new Development Plan and this will include ways people can help without being on the Committee.
Try a Sprint 15 Day
Boats available to have a go in, with tuition and advice on joining the fleet.
See the latest Unshackled page 10 for more on Sprint 15s.
This is the Club’s biggest event of the year and is being held on 19th / 20th November. Entry is limited to 130 boats and can only be made online before Sunday 13th November at http://events.sailracer.org/eventsites/new.asp?eventid=207915So far a good number of visitors and club boats have entered and we anticipate the entry list filling up quite quickly as we near the closing date. If you want to enter there is a much-reduced entry of £15 for DWSC members, so get your entry in quickly!
Only those who have entered can compete in any part of the Draycote Dash. There is not the option for club members competing in the Sunday pursuit race this year unless they have entered the event. However, club racing will be held as normal on the Sunday.
We are still short of a few helpers for this event, particularly for the finish of the pursuit race on the Sunday. This would require you from 11am to 2.30pm on Sunday 20th November. If you can help, please let Jeremy Atkins know.
29th October Youth and Junior session – last one before the winter
29th / 30th October Tera End of Season Championships
5th / 6th November British Universities Fleet Racing Championships
6th November Get Racing
12th November Try a Sprint 15 Day
19th / 20th November Draycote Dash
11th December Club Christmas PartyIf you have anything you would like to add in our future emails then please send details to office@draycotewater.co.uk.
Happy sailing!
Draycote Water Sailing Club