Worthing Sailing Club

🎉 Huge shout out to our amazing local businesses! 🌟

A heartfelt thank you to Flour Pot Bakery, Johnny’s Restaurant Goring, and Spun Records for their generous donations. Your support means the world to us!

We're thrilled to share that we raised an incredible £150 for the Bug Kiti fund! This was made possible by raffling two fantastic bottles of whisky, generously donated by The Whisky Rooms, Worthing. One of these treasures was a Lagavulin Distillers 16-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky – a real treat for the lucky winner!

Thank you to everyone who participated and contributed! 🥳🥂💖 The Whiskey Rooms Spun Records The Flour Pot Bakery

Are you the parent, guardian or carer of a child taking part in boating or sailing?

If so, then we want to hear from you!

We want to know how you feel about your child’s experiences on the water. By taking part in a short survey, you will be providing the RYA with valuable insight into how we can further help and support you to ensure all children and young people have safe and fun experiences.

To have your say, take part in the RYA Parent, Guardian and Carer Survey 2022, here - http://rya.org/1WGq50LIh5C

Bug Week 2022 – A Classic.

With near perfect conditions over the five days of Bug Week. This year’s weather completely made up for the disaster which was Bug Week 2021 and the cancellation due to Covid in 2020.

In total we had 29 children learning to sail, supported by 10 of our assistant instructors, who have all come up through the ranks of Bugs / Bug Week. With 39 children sailing at the club, this was the largest bug week fleet ever and was made up off Tera’s, Feva’s, Fusion’s, Pico’s, and the Bahia.

The children were split into two different groups, Rebels and Piranhas. The rebels were all either new to sailing, or just getting used to sailing without an AI. The piranhas where the more experience children, who were taking the step up to sailing the clubs Feva’s.

The rebels were looked after by Duncan, who was brilliantly supported by the AI’s. Niall looked after the Piranhas and delivered a lifetime of experience in three days. Sailing in 15 knots winds is becoming very familiar territory for the children. Wednesday’s conditions were fresh and sunny and the same for Thursday morning, but with a sea state best described as, sloppy chop. The wind picked up just to the wrong side of safe in the afternoon, so brought about an early finish to sailing.

The much loved Bug Week Dad’s curry night took place on the Thursday night, at the Marsala Lounge in East Preston. A new location for the event and to celebrate this change, mums were also invited for the first time, well someone had to drive us there!

The winds on Friday morning were going to be too strong to sail, so the start of the day had been delayed to 11.30. After some theory in the boat park and moving the fleet down the beach the children came in for lunch, knowing that an extended afternoon session out on the water awaited them. In near perfect conditions the fleet launched and enjoyed an excellent afternoon of sailing as the sea breeze filled in but the sea scape did not build.

Saturday sailing was going to be different to the first three days as we introduced the children to dinghy cruising. Lots of forward planning and preparation had gone into making this as safe and enjoyable as possible for the children. Jonty had prepared 39 pack lunches, the five patrol boats had been briefed on what formation they should be in, out on the water. The children were briefed on how to plan and execute a cruise safely. At low tide, but in perfect conditions the Worthing Sailing Club – Bug Division Armada set sail in a westerly direction.

The armada visited the South Cardinal buoy, where a dance off to baby shark was held. Then we carried on to Goring Gap, at this stage of the cruise another competition was held to see which boat could do the best Jack and Rose impression from the film Titanic. After sailing for 1h30m, the fleet came in and landed on the beach opposite the Blue Bird café, where the pack lunches and drinks were waiting.

After a 15 minute refuel, we were off again back towards the club. With both wind and tide in our favour and the piranhas loving sailing boats with spinnakers, the trip back was much quicker, so we carried on towards the pier. After 4hrs of sailing the decision was to bring the cruise to an end and head to shore. This decision was met with a lot of complaints from the children who just wanted to carry on sailing, what a brilliant response. But we had to land to get ready for the bug week party, which was themed “Under the Sea”.

During the week, the children too young to take part in Bugs had spent their time making lots of amazing decorations and transforming the club house to a fantasy underwater paradise, we have never seen the club house look so magical. Everyone turned up in fancy dress, you could see sharks, jelly fish, lobsters and one or two mermaids in attendance. One of the parents made some amazing Persian food for the “bring a dish” buffet, and between us all, there was a very long table full of food. The party was a great way to bring the training part of bug week to an end.

Sunday was all about integrating Bugs and Sunday racing together and allowing the children to put all their knowledge gained over the last four days into practice at a club Sunday racing event. In the morning the clubs sailing secretary, Jerry Robinson, who had helped throughout the week took the children through the possible flags that might be used at racing. The whole process of racing on Sunday, e.g. signing on, the race briefing, the role of the race officer etc was explained. The children then prepared their boats, signed on and went for their last lunch before the rest of the club turned up.

The first race of the day was a monohull trophy race and Bugs had entered 22 boats into the race, alongside a few of the normal club’s mono hull racers. Combined with 20 cats on the water, the race area was filled with boats. It must have looked a fantastic site from the beach. Not to be outdone the club was also buzzing, with both balconies full of people enjoying a drink and some food, Jonty’s £5 bug week special was going down a storm.

The best part of bug week was seeing 22 boats full of bug children all going over the start line of the race at the same time. It was an amazing sight to see. The racing was close and intense, the up-wind mark possibly might had been a bit too close, a decision not lost on the race box team when the boats were finishing. You could have easily been mistaken to thinking Chris Halfknight had given up being race officer and was instead now enjoying himself being a bingo caller. The numbers were coming out thick and fast, after three laps the monohulls were still very tightly packed together.

All of the bug boats then stayed out and took part in the summer series 8 race before heading to shore after completing 5 days of epic sailing at Worthing. The feedback from parents has been amazing with lots of their children now hooked on sailing and wanting to come out on a Sunday and race. Surely the best legacy we can all hope for, from Bugs and Bug Week.

Join us at midday on Saturday 04 June to take part in the Ships Salute as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

The UK Chamber of Shipping is inviting Ship Owners and recreational boaters to sound a simultaneous long blast on their horn or whistle.

Find out more - http://rya.org/Naib50JhKow


Photo credit: Jacob King/PA Wire/PA Images.

Third bug session of the year, perfect conditions, 42 children and 25 boats out on the water. Happy days

Our RYA 7 common senses remind you and your crew how to best stay safe on the water this summer!

Read them here: http://rya.org/etCV50ITcuv

38 children made it onto the water today for the start of yoof training 2022. A very gentle breeze, flat seas and blue skies, happy days.

IMPORTANT UPDATE 31 March 2022: Our stickers have proved extremely popular and more will be available very soon. Watch this space and we'll post a further update 👀

REMINDER TO WATER USERS: Please remember to put waterproof/permanent sticky labels with your contact details on all your equipment before heading to the water this year.

Order your labels via https://mca-ws.apsmos.com/ViewArticle.html?sp=Swatersportsoutdoorlabelpackwitha5flyerincludes3xlargeand3xsmallstickers

Over the last few years, has launched countless searches after watersports equipment is found washed up on the shore with no obvious owner. Equipment such as: boards, , , and most recently, sails and .

We don’t know if there is someone in need of our help, so we go looking .

By simply writing a mobile number with permanent ink, or placing a waterproof sticker somewhere on each part of your equipment, all it could take is one phone call to confirm that everyone is and .

✔️ Watersports equipment is expensive, save yourself money by labelling your kit and making it more likely that you will see it again.
✔️ Help us to quickly check that you are safe and well, and avoid a needless search where our volunteers are put into potentially hazardous situations.
✔️ Ensure that we are free to respond to other emergencies.

And remember, if you ever find yourself in trouble at our coasts, call 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

📸 Solstock