2 A float - Weir Wood Sailing Club

G John Hamilton G Richard Baker G
particularly good for those who enjoy
getting up at 5:30am at the weekends!
We now have 2 trailers so if you’re
not able to take the boat yourself then
please ask one of us as there is space
for 6 boats. A good number of Weir
Wood Optimists are already entered
for the following events: Papercourt 5
September, Datchet 13 September and
the SE Zone Championships again at
Datchet 26 and 27 September. Good
luck to all of our sailors in these events.
Want to enter? Then go to the IOCA
website www.optimistsailing.org.uk.
Starting from Sunday 4 October there
will be a separate start for Optimists.
Start time will be 10:40 and it will be
one race of about 60 minutes. This will
give our sailors more experience in
longer races and also keep their hand
in during the winter when there is no
Oppy Club. The feedback for this has
been good, but of course its success
is based on getting your boats on the
water! We will see how it goes until
Christmas and review.
During Oppy Club in October we
will be starting to use the IOCA
curriculum as a basis for training. This
will give everyone a more structured
approach and ensure that those who
don’t always go to Oppy Camp have
the opportunity to cover all aspects
of the programme and develop their
abilities. If you are not an IOCA
member or don’t have a log book it
will be a good idea to sort this out so
you can get the most from Oppy Club.
Other plans include an end of season
prize giving/get-together likely to be
mid-November (date to be advised).
For 2010, I would like to hand over
running the beginners group to
another Oppy parent. It’s a great role
and I’m sure something which could be
developed further. If you are interested
in taking this on then please contact
me. Also I am delighted to confirm
that we have again been selected for
the Optimist RYA Squad Zone training
on 23rd and 24th January 2010.
The 2010 National Championships are
in Weymouth 24 – 30 July. There is a
good deal of interest from our sailors
in being there in force, not too far to
go and great offshore experience using
pre-Olympic facilities. More details
to follow. However, this is likely to
present a problem with Oppy Camp
Oppy Camp 2009
Richard Haw
which is usually in the same week.
Depending on school holidays we
could consider re-scheduling for the
end of August, please let me know
what you think as we need to make a
decision on this before the end of the
year?
So, there’s a lot going on with a growing
fleet of keen children and parents
looking forward to the rest of the season.
You can keep up to date by going to the
website and regular news will be sent out
by email.
See you on the water!
By Jacob
Wow what a week! On Sunday 26 July, I and 39 (or so) other )ppy sailors arrived
to set up camp in a freshly-poohed field (thanks to the cows!). Once all the tents
had been put up and the parents had departed we were able to get on with sailing
- that’s what we were there for. We were in five groups – levels 1-4 and racing. It
was great fun sailing every day.
Off the water we were in put into one of four Watches. The Watches were
supposed to be a mixed group of different ages although for some reason ours
(yellow) was made up boys. Points were given out for helping, good sailing
etc and there were prizes at the end for the Watch with the most points. We
started off trying to earn some points, but……. we ended up losing a few points.
Highlights of the week were Oppy club race and winning the treasure hunt….
Afloat Autumn/Winter 2009
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