Dear Sailors and Supporters,

Those of us out this weekend can confirm it’s certainly getting colder out there as our thermals came out for the first time, but colds never going to stop us. With the shifting lack of wind, it was hard for all but sunshine warmed us up.

We managed to make the most of our weekend using opportunity to get the sailors into different roles rotating around. For some this was their first time for instance on the helm.

Saturday morning was spent introducing back some of our summer Thursday sailors, discussing how people communicate focused on being a stronger team within the boat.

On the water we focused on tacking and gybing in the light airs, for some a start towards role tacking the boats and others just learning about the jib tail tails (bits of cotton on the jib telling us what the wind is doing) and getting the sailors to learn how to steer/helm to them.

With 13 of us in total we meet up for a social post sailing for an evening meal in the Duke of York Cowes, the owners Sally and Barry have been fantastic to us for many years now. They don’t just welcome everyone, they give our sailors a discount on accommodation if staying from the mainland but, make sure we are looked after fully whether staying or not and also with volunteering to look after one of our sailors guide dogs whilst were out sailing. This support is so valuable we can’t thank them enough.

We then followed this up by all heading back to the CCYC, for a laugh around the pool table where our sailors competitiveness really came out and aloud some great chat about the sailing.

Sunday was another challenge of light airs so we started by only rigging one boat, then one of our training skippers ran a briefing on the spinnaker pole prepping for a hoist and gybing. This was going to be followed by everyone having a go on shore but thanks to the super light breeze we headed out to QXI, a racing mark in the middle of the Solent, turned around as a group and popped up our kites (spinnakers), slowly heading back to Cowes, practising gybing, hoisting and dropping along the way. Followed by a mini race at the end.

Huge thanks also to the CCYC Sailing Secretary, Laurie Tennant, who joined us for the day on Sunday enabling us to have 3 boats out both days. He even proved his invaluableness and stepped into helm a Sonar when needed, only if he could see the smile on his face! Huge thanks to him for this.

This weekend brought a fantastic surprise of progression for us that the hard work of our sailors and repetitive training over the year meant the boats were launched and recovered of the water so smoothly and efficiently by everyone working as a team which enabled us to enjoy our social time together post sailing and no-one needing your run off early.

Working a team, all able and disabled together, means that not one person it left to one side, all feel included and have meaning. It means we can drive forwards and support each other where needed.

We pride ourselves on the fact we work in different boats on the water but we fully support everyone as a full team on land.

We can’t wait to get back out in 2 weekends time, if you haven’t sailed with us yet and are interested to come and play, then please get in contact via info@acfsailing.org and we will get in touch and plan getting you out. If new to us and we feel needed, we will plan a trial sail for you so don’t worry if your nervous or not sure if you can, able or not. Get in touch and we can work it out together.

Other ways to sign up and keep in touch are by downloading our ‘Team app’, check out the details via this link to find out more. https://acfsailing.teamapp.com/documents/722641-how-to-install-the-acf-sailing-app-advised-for-sailors-and-volunteers

If you want to see more about our planned sailing for 2020 then please check out our events page at www.acfsailing.org and click events.

Huge thank you as always to all of our supporters and volunteer help. We couldn’t do it without you!

We look forward to seeing you all on the water at some point soon.

Kind regards,

The ACF Sailing Team

Location

Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club