Category Archives: News

Closing Regatta & Ceilidh

SATURDAY & SUNDAY 28th & 29th September 2024

We have our closing regatta at the end of September, and we invite everyone to take part of the sailing race and/or the Ceilidh in the evening. This will be a great opportunity for members of the club to get together towards the end of the sailing calendar to blow of some steam and have a boogie.

Members and non-members are invited to the sailing regatta, when you are interested and do not have received a notice of race contact us by email and we will send you one. On this day we will have visitors from the Blue bells Enterprise sailing as we have had for many years.
If there are any skiff members that would like to sail on the day, the club has some boats that are available for the day.

Not a sailor? We would still like you to join us during the day to support us, help out in the club house or on the shore. We would like even more for you to join us in the evening when we have our buffet dinner and Ceilidh. (We are looking for donations of soup for lunch and food for the evening)

If you want to get more information about the day, evening or want to help out please contact us.

Use the ‘Closing regatta and ceilidh form’ to register for sailing, ceilidh or both.

Closing regatta & Ceilidh Form

Olympic Sailing: Point – Counter-Point

The Irish Times carried an editorial by Jonathan Liew in which he found the Olympic Games had grown to include many sports, and arguably, too many.

So Liew initiated a review, and found many negatives about Sailing, calling it to be “a continuing sop to super-rich men who founded the Games and still just really love yachts, basically inaccessible to most of the countries in the world, even the ones with a viable coastline.”

There was a lot of disagreement with his view… here’s what Sheila Armstrong had to say:
I learned to sail off the coast of Sligo in a three-metre Mirror dinghy built by my father sometime in the early 1990s. So did my siblings, my cousins, and my nieces and nephews. The boat is called Sideshow Bob, and it has been holed, capsized and repaired so many times that the Ship of Theseus could take notes. We travelled to competitions around Ireland and even made it abroad a few times in these Mirror dinghies. As adults, some of us graduated to larger boats and some drifted away, but we can all still tie a damn good knot. –
Full report

Sailing training for beginners

We have run a cadet sailing training for beginners with great success, and we are about to begin an adult training session. The cadet sessions have been run on Sunday mornings for 6 weeks and all cadets have been successful in completing the level 1 sailing.
Soon we are about to start a 2 day course for adults, where they will be given a full day instructions on how to start with sailing, getting into boats and get hands on coaching. We have some spaces for anyone interested in giving sailing a go.
The cost of the course is £60.00 pp, plus a club membership at 50% of the cost. With the membership you can keep sailing after you have completed the course in any of the club boats. The hire price for the club boats is also removed for the rest of the year, therefore there is no reason to not practice after the course.

Forfar Sailing Club Opening Regatta & Community Skiff Race

Forfar Sailing & Watersports Club

SUNDAY 21st April 2024

NOTICE OF RACE

VENUE: Racing to be held on Forfar Loch. Access to the water: Forfar Sailing Club House. Changing and refreshment facilities available in the Clubhouse.

SAIL PROGRAMME:  3 races programmed over the day (weather permitting). First race to start at 11.00 am with 2nd race to follow on.  3rd races to follow Skiff racing (see below).  Exact race program subject to change depending upon weather conditions.

CLASSES: General Handicap.                              

RACING RULES:  All races to be governed by the Racing Rules of Sailing 2021-2024. In addition, competitors must be aware of, and comply with the Local Sailing instructions available at the club.

BRIEFING:  There will be a briefing in the clubhouse at 10.30 on Sunday 21st April.

COURSES:  Courses will be set by the Race Officer on the day dependent on prevailing weather and will be round club fixed marks (see map in the FSC Sailing Instructions and on club notice boards).

SCORING:  If 3 races are sailed, one result may be discarded. Scoring as per FSC Sailing Instructions low point. 

INSURANCE:  All boats shall have 3rd Party insurance 

SKIFF PROGRAM

All Skiffies taking part in opening races are required to be at the club for 11.30am for boat launch at university slipway.  Pre-race briefing at 12.15, with a race start anticipated for 12.45. Second race to follow on.  Skiff crews will be selected to make each boat balanced, with the aim of ensuring close racing.

Skiffies are of course welcome to come down early and cheer on the sailors who will be starting their races at 11am or stay later for their final race after the skiff racing

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Location: Forfar Sailing Club 

Enquiries: forfar.sailing@gmail.com

Great job by the radio sailors

The radio sailors took advantage of the lack of wind to start some of the maintenance.

We made a good start to replacing the steps down to the jetties, joinery work complete, old steps removed and new timbers in place.

The for tomorrow is to replace the concrete block and stones to the tread then concrete the gap which is left to hopefully reduce the weeds growing up through the steps. (Tich)

They went on to have a good, almost complete days sailing with 10 races completed in light winds from the east. The breeze did swing about from SE to E to NE making for interesting racing.

Great commitment yesterday and today from the radio sailors team as the steps have been replaced by them at the inch. 

Thanks for a splendid job.

(Tony)

Doesn’t it look good, safe steps down to the jetties for everyone!

Prize giving and social evening

Sunday 25 February at the Forfar Rugby Club.

We have our annual prize giving and social event this Sunday at the Forfar Rugby club with a buffet dinner, some drinks and banter between members of the Forfar Sailing and Watersports club. We hope that many of our sailors and rowers that attend will have a great evening and are looking forward to a great year of using the Loch.

We are always looking for short stories related to the club, if this is from a day on the water or a day away, visiting other clubs or just seen a great skiff or sailing boat while out please, send us a paragraph with or without some photo’s. We can then place them on the website, Facebook or Mail shot (if you want to restrict this to one of these, just let us know).

If you have not already let us know that you want to come along on Sunday, drop us an email or contact one of us. You are more than welcome to come along for a drink and a blether without using the buffet.