Commodore's July Newsletter

Published 12:04 on 1 Jul 2022

I hope you will all agree that June has been a fantastic month for the club thanks to the hard work of your sub-committees.  We started with the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Yet again the clubhouse was beautifully decorated by David de Carteret and his team. On Thursday evening we had a special BBQ on the balcony and thanks to our chefs for putting on a great display of food and the social team for keeping us well entertained. The following day we celebrated with a breakfast at St Aubins Fort. We were blessed with good weather and had a fleet of all types of boats anchored off with several members saying that this was the first time that they had been to an organised event and please could we do it on an annual basis. Many thanks to Cathy Moisan and her team for all their hard work.



The following weekend it was the Jersey Boat Show and again this was the first time that we had booked a stand. Many thanks to those of you who manned the tent, and it did seem to go down very well with our members and is certainly something that we will hope to repeat in 2023. As a bonus we also gained over twenty new members! So many thanks to Jeff and his team who made this possible.



Arguably the highlight of a busy month must have been the Evacuation celebrations in spite of the rather blustery conditions which reduced the number of boats that either got down to St Malo or had to leave earlier than planned. Many thanks to Mike Entwistle and all his committee who arranged a fantastic trip to Jersey for Irene Probstein and her family from the USA. As many of you will be aware she is the last surviving person who was evacuated by the St Helier Yacht Club flotilla in 1940 and what a remarkable lady she is. At 91 she was extremely agile and her memory of the events during the war was extraordinary. She gave a talk at the Club on the Monday which was thoroughly enjoyed by those present. Whilst in St Malo she went to the slip from which she was evacuated which was quite emotional for her.



Last weekend was the annual Inter Insular Race and for the first time this was sponsored by Savills so many thanks to them and we are hoping that they will continue to support this great event. Unfortunately, we had to surrender the Sir James Knott team race trophy but congratulations to Julian Barber on Super Q who was the first Jersey boat on corrected time.



Looking forward to July our main event will be our Biscay Race to Lorient. There has been a great deal of work in the background to organise both an Offshore Race and a Rally. Jeff has done a marvelous job and we are now just hoping that he has not forgotten to arrange for some good weather which will suit both the Race and the Rally boats! Not asking too much, I hope.

July will see the first stage of the work to upgrade the entrance to the Club House. Firstly, we will be replacing the old windows going up the stairwell, on the landing and in the office. This has been on the agenda for several years and thanks to our House Committee for getting this organised. Once this has been done, we will be replacing the outside cladding and the Ruberoid on the roof. When this is completed, I am sure that the entrance to the Club will be much smarter and perhaps also importantly with the increasing costs of fuel and electricity it will be much more energy efficient. Whilst the work is in progress there will inevitably be some disruption to the main entrance to the Club but please bear with us whilst the work is in progress.

The Jersey Rowing Club have been in contact to find any members who may be able to provide a suitable support boat for their Sark to Jersey race on Saturday the 9th of July. If you have a suitable boat or would like to discuss this with the Rowing Club, please contact Stuart Richford on 07700 751960 or email stuart.richford@gmail.com.

Dates for your diary.
July:
9th: Coastal Race 4 - Troy & Le Riche Trophies to Gorey
16th: RYA Sea Survival Course
17th: Kalina Shields - Two Handed Race
17th: RYA First Aid Course
23rd: Race and Rally to Biscay

August:
7th: Coastal Race 5 - Round the Island Race
20th: RYA VHF Radio Course
21st: Crew's Race
27th - 29th: Rally to Carteret
29th: Offshore Race 6 - Carteret to Jersey

Rhys Perkins
Commodore
St Helier Yacht Club