Hostellers Sailing Club

Record of events - Year 2001 - Second file

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Sat. April 28th - Fitting out supper

As usual our fitting out supper was held at the Mission Hall in Paglesham. Both club boats were launched during the day. There was some difficulty in rowing the Wayfarers out from the hard to the moorings since a sudden squall came over and one boat missed the moorings and ended up drifting down river unable to row back against the ebb - a passing motor cruiser gave assistance - not an impressive start to the sailing season but never mind! A very satisfying buffet was organised by Grace, Josephine and Christina. After the supper Christina showed us some slides of her trip to Petra.

May29th (Tuesday) Restaurant Meal in London

After a great deal of discussion about type and price bracket of restaurant we went for a meal at the cafe of the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre at Bankside. Because of the evening performance the cafe was empty and we had almost exclusive attention of he waiter. We enjoyed a pleasant evening with lively discusion of life in general and planning for the forthcoming new members sailing weekend.

June 9th/10th - New members weekend

We introduced a couple of prospective new members over the weekend. I sailed on the Saturday and since the wind was light we sailed up the Roach rather than going to Burnham, the later possibility seeming to incur too much risk of being becalmed with an ebb tide on our return. John Langrick sailed up the river with us in Swanti and when we reached the little creek which turns up towards Stambridge village John anchored and we all ended up aboard his boat drinking his refreshments, hope we can return the hospitality sometime. Later in the afternoon we carried on up to the head of the river and went for a short stroll. Walking round the back of a boatyard we came across the club house of the Wakering Yacht Club, I had not noticed this before. So there are three sailing groups on the Roach to the best of my knowledge, the HSC, the RSA and the WYC which we were told relocated from Wakering a few years ago.

July 8th - Link up with Chelmsford YHA Local Group

For the first time in a number of years we organised a joint activity with another local group. Three members of Chelmsford group sailed with us up the Roach to the Cherry Tree PH where we joined several other members of that group who had walked there from Paglesham Church End. We then invited those who had not sailed on the way up to sail back but only one took up the offer, the others walked back. I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have been the sight of the Paglesham mud which mainly discouraged them? The sailing party were slower than the walkers on the way up to Rochford, mainly because our boats ran into shallow water near the head of the Roach so we had to wait for the tide to rise a bit further. On the way back down with the tide starting to ebb and a following breeze the boats easily raced the walkers who also had to detour around the bends in the seawall footpath. A successful event and perhaps we could do more to promote this kind of joint group activity, with Chelmsford Group and/or other local YHA groups.

August 25 to 27 - Bank holiday weekend

This bank holiday the two HSC Wayfarers sailed north to the Blackwater to meet up with the East coast group of the Dinghy Cruising Association. We left Paglesham about 10am with the last of the ebb and had an easy and sunny sail to Bradwell. The tide was flooding by the time we crossed the Ray Sand. We were not quite sure about the exact details of the DCA plan for the weekend but a few minutes after we pulled into Bradwell hard we spotted Peter Small, the DCA organiser, arriving by car with his Wayfarer on a trailer. Peter fixed up berths for our boats in the marina even though it was supposed to be full. Even more miraculous he found us a spot where we were allowed to put up a couple of small tents, something we never achieved on previous visits to Bradwell. By evening about four more DCA boats had arrived and about 10 of us enjoyed a meal together in the Green Man.

Sunday morning dawned grey and looking like it was about to rain. We were just a little tiny bit shocked when Peter Bick, ex president of the DCA, arrived in his outboard powered fibreglass speedboat - (must say no more, Peter does such a good job of producing the DCA magazine!). But I think it is true to say that the two HSC boats were the only boats in the combined fleet without some kind of motor. One of the boats had an electric auxiliary which despite being connected to a large battery ran out of juice halfway through the weekend. This seemed a nice quite kind of motor and apparently it could give 30lbs of thrust but the owner admitted that he might not have chosen it had it not come with the boat. Anyway, after breakfast one boat sailed to Brightlingsea to make an appointment on a golf course, the others set off for West Mersea, the destination agreed in the pub the previous evening. The engine equipped boats motored into Mersea creek and did arrive a little ahead of the HSC Wayfarers. We used one boat to ferry everyone ashore, the others remaining tied to a visitors bouy. The sky darkened, motor cars switched on their lights and the rain poured down. The whole party headed straight for the bar of the West Mersea Yacht Club where we stayed about 2 hours or until the rain started to ease off. Next stop was Goldhanger creek where, thanks to Peter Small's organisation, Clive, the secretary of the Goldhanger Sailing Club was standing on the sea wall waiting for us to arrive so that he could open up the club compound for us to set up our tents. Thank you Clive and GSC, with the rain about to start again it was wonderful to have such a friendly and helpful reception. The evening was spent in one of the two pubs in Goldhanger.

On Monday morning Clive was again on hand as we loaded and got underway. We had a very quick sail back to Paglesham, force 2 to 3 northerly with warm sunshine is hard to beat for this passage. Richard and Len in one wayfarer continued on up the Crouch to extend the trip by a day or so, myself and Josephine took the other boat directly back to Paglesham.

September 17th to 21st- Annual cruise

This year we left our cruise till late in the season. We knew we were taking a chance with the weather and sure enough we were confronted with heavy rain and a forcast for force 8 gales. Despite this four of us still wanted to go cruising but starting from Paglesham was not an attractive prospect. We could probably have managed some sailing on the Crouch and Roach but I think we would have ended up wet and bedragled. We stayed at home until the Tuesday of the alloted week then decided to go to the Norfolk Broards where sailing should be possible in almost any weather. We took my 15 foot dinghy on its road trailer and intended to hire another boat to make space for our party of four. We arrived in Norfolk after dark and found a campsite near Martham. It rained all night and although our tents did not leak we found in the morning that they were splattered in mud where the rain had bounced up off the soggy muddy ground. The first boatyard we tried for boat hire refused to let us take a boat out on account of the dodgy weather forcast but we had more luck when we tried Hunters boat yard at Ludham who were most helpfull despite the short notice. The boat we hired was a nice one, a carvel built 20 foot lug sail boat with a fixed ballast keel quite recently built by Hunters yard from iroko on oak. The boat is shown below with two of us sailing it gently on the sheltered waters of South Walsham Broad.

This type of boat hardly tilts when you step on the gunwhale, quite different to the dinghies we are used to. Having a good size sail it glided along nicely once it got going but you had to think ahead about stopping. Although I think that most hirers would take this boat out only for a day trip the boatyard are quite happy for hirers to camp on board and the heavy canvas cover which fits over the boom and gaff makes a fine camping awning with sleeping space on the broard flat planked floor of the boat. We had a modest cruise from Ludham to South Walsham Broard, Ranworth, Horning and back to Ludham. The first day was pretty wet but after that we had some sunshine and the wind eased off.

Photo above shows our two boats tied up near the entrance to the main part of Ranworth Broad, now a nature reserve and closed to boats. From the staging here you can walk a few yards to the nature reserve visitors centre.

Photo above shows Christina and Josephine sailing my boat back along the Bure towards the end of our short cruise.

Photo above shows our boats in Thurne dyke, our last overnight stop before returning to the boatyard at Ludham

On arrival back at Ludham we found that there was a party to celebrate the 75 years existance of Hunters boatyard. This boatyard is now a charitable trust set up to preserve a fleet of traditional sailing hire boats many of which date from the 1930s. The trust makes these boats available for educational purposes as well as for private hirers such as ourselves. We shared a large birthday cake with the freinds of the trust, many of which had dressed 1930's style for the occasion. Then we drove to Winterton, a coastal village a few miles away, for a walk along the beach - see pic below - and back through the sand dunes and after that we headed home.

Laying up - Satuday November 3rd 01

A few photos sent in by Richard Farr:

Here is Meander ashore in Paglesham boatyard. At that stage we had not realised that there was gallons and gallons of water in the forward bouyancy compartment - no wonder it was such hard work manhandling the boat into its winter storage location!

For the last few years we have been grateful to a local landowner for winter storage of our boats behind some old farm sheds.

We had to do some gardening to make a passage for the boats.

We did stop for lunch at the Plough and Sail.

After the work was done we held our fitting out supper in Paglesham Village Hall. After the supper a slide show, one member had slides of an adventurous walking holiday in Bulgaria, another of a holiday on the southern irish coast aboard the new square rigger operated by the Sail Training Assocition

Annual General Meeting weekend - Castle Headingham - 01/02 Dec 01

The minutes of our AGM will be reported elsewhere but as a summary and leaving out the appointment/reappointment of committee members etc:

• We agreed to buy a new wayfarer road trailer/launching trolley our existing trailer being no longer road worthy. The new trailer will have a galvanised frame (unlike the old one) and should serve the club for the foreseeable future and beyond. It will be reasuring to know that if we encounter bad weather while sailing afar we will be able to return the boats by road. Although it was decided to buy a brand new trailer I expect a second hand one in first class condition might also be considered, so if anyone knows of such they could get in touch.
• On the financial side the club made only a small surplus this year with no money put aside for replacement of boats or equipment. The figures for the last few years show a trend of rising expenditure for moorings, insurance etc. The club subscriptions have been held constant for a number of years and it was agreed that they could stay the same for 2002, but perhaps for no longer than that. The use of club boats dropped this year which also contributed to the poor figures, it is hoped that this is temporary. It was noted that we did not have a well attended club cruise this year. This may simply be because we have had excellent cruises for several years in a row and members need a break befor returning with renewed enthusiasm next summer.
• There were half a dozen suggestions for venues for our Easter trip next year. After voting on these using a complicated proportional representation system Minehead youth hostel was the clear favourite. Minehead is by the sea - perhaps we could even go sailing. We should have that new road trailer by then.

Eight of us stayed over night at the hostel and in the morning we took the opportunity to visit the Hedingham castle a few hundred yards up the hill from the hostel. The castle would normally be closed this time of the year but it happened that this weekend it was open for a special Elizabethan Yuletide weekend, one of about 10 special events held at the Headingham castle each year. Other special events include jousting weekends, a seige reenactment etc., they all sound fun - see Hedingham Castle web site for details. The Yuletide weekend featured live medival music, lute, hurdygurdy, the opportunity to chat with an armour maker, a bow maker, caligrapher with quill pens, a knight of the order of St John, weavers and others, all dressed in period costume and acting their parts. We spent all morning in the Castle and still did not get to look at the grounds and gardens. We then lunched at Claire, a pretty tourist attraction village just over the River Stour into Suffolk. After lunch we realised it would be getting dark in an hour or so hence we had just a short walk around the village taking in the castle ruins, the disused railway station and railway line which runs along the river bank and the still active priory. Claire castle is much more dilapidated than the one at Headingham but similarly positioned on a high mound.

Photo showing three of us at the Castle Hedingham village sign
From the castle brochure
Elizabethan instruments demonstrated at Hedingham Castle
Clair village, Essex. View from the castle ruins.

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