Attending a Fleet Dinghy Cruise

If a calling notice has gone out advertising a daysail, there is some information that the Advanced Organiser (AO) and Officer Of the Day (OOD) needs in order to plan the day.

You will be asked on every occasion to let the AO and OOD know the following information.

1.Name(s) of attendees.

2. Contact numbers – including a telephone number for the evening before and early on the morning of the planned sail ( if plans need to change or adverse weather forecast – Force 6 or more on the Inshore Forecast).

3. Contact details for a someone for us to reach out to in case of incident (only to be used if you are incapacitated).

4. Level(s) of sailing experience/qualification?

5. Number of club dinghy spaces?

6. Will you bring your own dinghy – if so do you require a crew?

7. Do you have a tow bar/can you tow a club dinghy?

Note that we do not ask you to provide medical information which your skipper may need by electronic methods. If you have a medical condition, please brief your skipper and OOD discreetly and verbally.

We want to know this information for different reasons.

Requested Information Reason for asking for it
Name(s) of attendees. We need to know who is coming, if it’s more than one person please list all the people in your party
Contact numbers The planning of a dinghy daysail is sometimes very straightforward – if the weather has a stable pattern and the is a high likelihood of the cruise going ahead, then there’s no need to contact you at the last minute. However, sometimes the weather is changing every 6 hours, so we may need to contact you either late the night before or first thing in the morning. The Inshore Weather Forecast is published about 6am, and that’s the very last chance for the weather to be acceptable or unacceptable. We may need to contact you at the last moment and by phone or text. If we text you please text back to say you have received the last minute message.
Medical information If you have an ongoing medical concern and you may require those around you to take action to help you, both the OOD and your helm may need to know. Sailing is a physical activity, and you will be away from land for some hours, so we need to know of things that we need to look out for in order to maximise the chances of everyone being OK.
Contact details for a contact in case of incident In the unlikely chance of some kind of incident happening, we will want to be able to contact someone and let them know. Since your emergency contact may change from week to week, we ask this every time.
Level(s) of sailing experience/qualification? So that we can plan a balanced crew in our fleet.
Will you require a club dinghy space(s)? If you are a Dinghy Section member, we need to know that you want a space in a club boat. It might be that you crew a privately owned dinghy even if you have signed up to crew a club boat – this is a good thing as it gives you the chance to sail in different types of dinghy.
Do you have a tow bar/can you tow a club dinghy? So that we can plan the logistics to get the boats to the launch point.

Recent Posts

A cruise in Portsmouth Harbour

We had a lovely autumn day sail in Portsmouth Harbour, visiting three sailing clubs.

The track of the day

Not having done many events there recently, it was as an interesting sail that was surprisingly green and picturesque in parts. Martin had arranged with Portchester Sailing Club for us to launch from their slip way and use their facilities for the day. They were very welcoming inviting us also to join them afterwards for their boat laying up end of season social.
Martin led the cruise in his Wayfarer crewed by Edmund and Joshua. Simon sailed his Comet Trio crewed by Anne and Andy. James sailed the club Comet Versa single handed.

Comet Versa ready to launch

It was a good wind for the sail, mainly F3 to 4 from the north to north west and wonderful autumn sunshine! We left Portchester sailing club slip following the channel firstly south then north west up Fareham channel which was a beat for part of the way. We landed at Fareham Sailing and Motoring Club for lunch at close to high water. We tied up on a jetty there. The club house is a lovely old building with a great view over the water with a nice bar serving food and drink. We had a very leisurely lunch in the sunshine.

After lunch when the tide turned, we sail back down Fareham Creek taking the falling tide out towards Hardway Sailing Club. We first landed on the beach at Hardway but were advised by a local to sail to a jetty next to the hard as the tide was falling and the it was not nice for grounding boats (hard concrete leading to mud). We sailed the boats to the end of a long jetty to ensure they didn’t dry out while we popped into the club for tea. Landing on the jetty in a strong cross tide was tricky but good practice though.

Martin’s Wayfarer

After a short stay at Hardway we then sailed up a now narrower channel than in the morning back towards Portchester sailing club. The wind picked up slightly and it was a hard beat (especially for the single hander) against a falling tide. We made it back to Portchester SC eventually though with the last of the day light.
Once back at Portchester SC there was a bit of a party going on with food, drinks in the bar including homemade rum punch and a band setting up. We packed up the boats in the compound and enjoyed the excellent friendly hostilely of Portchester SC. It was very enjoyable end to a pleasant sail and in fact the main Cody sailing season. We hope to do a few similar sails like this over the winter.

Thanks to Martin leading and arranging with Portchester and also Fareham sailing clubs to host us. Surprisingly, the sail was 21 km in total, longer than I had expected. Portchester sailing have welcomed us back next year for a sail and may be do a rounding of Portsea Island. That will take some careful tide planning!

Simon M (photos by James P)

The fleet in Portsmouth Harbour