Introduction - 2008 Racing

Clwb Hwylio Pwllheli Sailing Club has been organising club racing of the highest quality in Cardigan Bay for many years. We are fortunate that the racing takes place in probably the best sailing waters in the UK and this certainly makes the process of organising racing so much easier.

Those of you who have participated will know that we have near perfect conditions with lack of commercial shipping, no strong tidal flows and ‘clean’ prevailing wind from the south west. This is all set in a bay with spectacular scenery with LLeyn Peninsula to the north, Snowdonia to the north east and the mountains of mid - Wales to the east and south east.

We have, every year, listened to your comments and have, as a Club, strived to provide the best possible racing experience.

We have announced our racing programme for 2008 which will provide a wide variety of racing from windward leeward style round the cans, long scenic bay races and full blown regattas with Committee boat starts. We are able to accommodate sailors with a range of sailing ability from those who aspire to win major National championships to the racers who are happy to race with a partner and to enjoy a good day out sailing. We will provide Class racing for IRC PYS, Sportboats and Gentlemen’s Class.

Over the last two years we have developed the new starting bridge and have introduced the latest computer race management technology.

We are very fortunate to have Robin Evans as our principal Race Officer and he has fine tuned our race result process using ‘Sailwave’. We hope that this will enable us to provide provisional results promptly after the last boat has finished.

We have also listened to your comments about the fixed courses and although most of you thought that they were excellent we have made further improvements and hope to introduce our new, exiting series of 2008 courses shortly.

With thanks to Jonathan Abrahams of JKA Sailmakers we have improved the visibility of the start line with an orange top to the flag pole. He has also produced large static flags for recall and general recall.

We have made further improvements to our Sailing Instructions and have incorporated the RYA Racing Charter. Please refer to our web page for the 2008 SI’s and throw away any old copies to avoid confusion.

You will have noticed that sailing continued through last winter and we have thoroughly enjoyed the company of the Liverpool Yacht Club (LYC) race management teams and competitors. It will be sad to see then leave Pwllheli but we hope to have their company for a little longer so that they can take part in the Mailspeed Regatta. We have made lots of new friends and we are sure of a warm welcome in Liverpool Yacht Club or their associated club Tranmere. We wish all LYC members a good season and in particular good luck to those who will take part in Cork Week and Round Ireland – good luck.

For those of you who have tried racing, welcome back for another season of enjoyable racing; for those who have never tried it you don’t know what you’re missing. See you on the start line.

We also take this opportunity to thank Eifion for his hard work as Sailing Committee Chairman for the last 3 years. He will continue with his work on this committee and in helping Gwyndaf develop youth sailing in the Club. We welcome Andrew Rosewarne as our new Chairman. Andrew can be contacted on + 44 (0) 1758 701076 . m + 44 (0) 7749 559310 andrew@intracode.co.uk.

We hope that 2008 will be a great season for everyone.

Stephen Tudor

On behalf of the sailing committee