Weymouth
Sailing
Club

Royal Navy in Dorset
by Stuart Morris
Join us to continue the winter talks programme at the club on Friday 22nd February 7.30pm
Stuart tells the story of Dorset's maritime involvement from Henry VIII's time, through the Armada and Dutch battles off Portland. Confronting France, Trafalgar, sail to steam, the ironclads. The Formation of Portland Harbour and breakwaters, the advent of torpedoes. The first flight from a moving ship, the First World War WW1 and the early 20th century.

Just a reminder that the next stop on the world tour of my presentation about Cherbourg breakwater will be at WSC on Friday 8th March at 7.30pm. After that you'll have to travel to Cherbourg to catch it in the French version later this year. If you're already planning to join the Cherbourg rally in June, of course, this is a chance to 'get some knowledge in' before you go!

Jill and Simon Vines took 17 of us on a seven-mile ramble on Sunday, starting and finishing at the excellent Saxon Arms in Stratton (just north of Dorchester). The rain stopped promptly for the start at 10am and the weather improved so we finished the walk in sunshine. The picture shows the group in front of Forcey’s Tower, a bell tower built in 2014 to mark the centenary of the Forcey family leaving their nearby farmhouse.

Over one hundred members of WSC and their guests celebrated the club’s annual prize giving with a dinner and dance held at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.

I shall be presenting some of the fruits of my Cherbourg research at 7.30pm on Saturday 2 February at the Royal Dorset Yacht Club, Custom House Quay, Weymouth – for those of you who aren’t watching the rugby, of course!

The bizarre science-fiction world of Ancien Regime inventors and engineers is the setting for this richly illustrated account of the building of the Cherbourg breakwater.

Poole Harbour Sea Survival School are proposing to run a one day RYA Sea Survival Course on Sunday 24th March 2019.

Starting at 0900 in WSC longshed, at 1300 there will be a break for lunch when candidates make their own way over to the Boscowen Centre on Portland for practical survival training in the swimming pool.

25 members enjoyed an excellent walk from the Drax Arms, Bere Regis on Sunday. Caroline led a interesting varied walk through the woods, valley and heath-land. We had all dressed for a cold and windy day but had to strip layers as we seemed to be sheltered and then blessed with sunshine. Timing was excellent, arriving back at the Drax Arms for some great food and drinks. Looking forward to the next walk on February 10th. Photo outside Turnspuddle Church

“Poet Sarah Acton is Weymouth Library’s new writer-in-residence. From January to March Sarah will be working at the library and with local communities on an exciting new project to explore the theme of ‘Weymouth-on-Sea’.

Hello Sailors

Well another year over and a new one just begun, as the song goes.

Congratulations to our winter series winners, Paul Elson in Orion who took 1st in IRC 4 with 4 bullets, closely followed by our commodore in Rumrunner, also with four bullets but lost out on countback.

Richard Woof in Jo 90 took first in IRC 3 with his 5 bullets, Arcsine and Passion also put up a good fight but was not enough, well there's always next year.

But onto the highlight of the racing calendar, The Boxing day Race .

Hello Sailors
Well after our summer of no wind and sunshine, who'd have thought of a winter like this... blown out kites, ripped mains, collisions and holes in boats but thankfully no injuries.
What's left of the fleet will still be out this Sunday for the penultimate race of the Winter Series.