Update March 17th

Lovely day for the work party despite lowly forecasts. In fact, the wind did not get up till late afternoon so it was very pleasant. Many thanks to everyone of you who turned up, and apologies accepted from Jerry Hack who was sorry to miss the fun

Bosun Anthony had started off the day before by scraping all the sand off the west matting, but he was also there on the day to pull up the matting. We had umpteen people, the Commodore's wife with the best of them, shoveling sand, which was dumped along the track as the planking was taken up. Once everything was re-laid the matting was dragged back with the tractor, which was much easier than we normally have it!

Ivan Gardiner was with the gang sorting out abandoned boats and he had a lovely time chopping up anything that was not saleable and the skip was rapidly filled.

Coffee time, coffee provided by the Commodore, and everyone seemed to gravitate to our spot - and the cake.

The tender park was cleared of boats and sand and then we started on the eastern gateway. Most of the sand is removed but the matting is not cleared as yet. We also have to plan a proper retaining sleeper wall for by the little blue boat - there was not enough old flagpole to do the job!

Shirley Wiles came along to plant some marram grass - more sand retaining procedures - and also some yellow horned poppies grown from seed - just for fun - or possibly rabbit fodder.

After lunch - cream of broccoli etc. soup and very good - a gang was commandeered to clear up the hazel rod sticks in the bosun's yard and then, much to their surprise, build a chestnut paling fence around the bosun's yard to keep out all the little people! Matter of Health and Safety really - not a good place to play.

Three days later, after Northerly gales and equinoxical tides, the western gateway has a little sand in it but the raised matting is good, the tender park is fuller than it was before and the eastern gateway is quite unusable! However, the tide has removed a lot of sand (and some of the distal decking) and exposed the seaward end of the western matting making it, for the moment, possible to launch and recover with ease. But, it was just as well we did not lay the Road Roll!

So, still loads of work to do to get boats moving.

Here I should mention that Paul Brewer also sent his apologies, but we have since heard that he has had to have an emergency operation on his spine. Our sympathies and best wishes go to him and Elizabeth at what is a very worrying time.

Also, another bit of news - Ivan has sold David McNamara's boat for him after the initial sale dissipated. David was, seemingly, flabbergasted with the large sum of money offered and has very kindly donated half of the proceeds for the Solo Fleet to do with as it pleases.

Thanks to everybody for their hard work - but you haven't finished yet!

An other new boat. James Weatherstone has joined us from the 200 fleet. Doesn’t seem to have bought one for his wife yet though!

Update March 6th

Just a bit of news to keep you going!

Ant Penfold has his new Speed - just like Sarah’s -  which he has been sailing at Barn Island. He managed to beat his old red boat - some of the time!
David Mosely also has a new something.
Pete Way has been out there practicing all winter in his new boat.
We have lost a few of members - Stuart Bloese who has been with us about a year and who was V adept at wielding a mallet at the last working party, is off to Guernsey (I think)
 Peter Piddock has finally given up the struggle of commuting from Brighton as it will now be commuting from somewhere further North. He will be remembered for his boat which he renamed, sentimentally, ‘On Golden Pond’ and also for his heroic tunneling efforts under the concrete in front of Barry’s boat which enabled us to have the extra tap
David and Sarina McNamara have swanned off to NewZealand for 5 years, leaving their boat in the park as the prospective buyer dropped out! However, Ivan Gardener had a contact in Portchester who has, we hope, bought the boat, thus saving it from the Sin Bin. Ivan also did a good job on rescuing Electric Onion and sending it off to The Sea Scouts at Prinstead, with a newer sale c/o Melvyn. Rumours of three girls joining up from the Laser fleet etc. are still rumours - we shall have to wait and see!

FIRST WINTER WORKING PARTY

Happily, Sunday, January 21st lived up to its forecast and did not blow a gale, though we could have had a bit more sun!

We had a fabulous turnout of 18 very keen workers who could barely wait to get started and were detailed off to assorted projects as soon as they got out of their cars!

All projects were basically to do with restraining or removing SAND but with some attempt to restrain the tide from eating away at the lagoon dune with some rubble dumping.

We now have a very smart rope and post fence (as seen in Menorca) to replace the perished hazel rods and to try and encourage grass growth in front of the West Sand Barrier. Grass that is there is doing a good job of catching sand and the Barrier has risen to new heights in the last gales. So, one body of workers built the fence and another helped Barry with his project to try and deflect sand from entering through the pathway in a westerly gale.

Slightly unexpectedly we had the opportunity to clear the mountains of sand that were now clogging the washdown area and entrance. Chris Powell ended up driving the mini-digger thing to drag the sand away from the sleepers for Boson, Clive to collect and dump further out with the tractor. He enjoyed himself so much he was still at it at 4 pm long after most people  had departed. Though he did have the help of George, Fiona and David doing tricky bits with spades and wheelbarrow for quite a while in the afternoon. Keith probably had the most frustrating job trying to sort out the Road Roll. He attacked the really broken one but had great difficulty in extracting the embedded bits of string. Its going to be a ongoing drilling job!

The Club provided coffee (eaten with one of Jane’s sponges and an ex-Christmas cake) and later some soup which was basically cream of leek with cream, plus a few other things and cream - absolutely yummy and all partaken of in the shed so no-one could skive off for too long. A couple of mugs of the soup and a roll was more than adequate but some folks still felt the need for ‘little bit’ of roast!

Questions were asked as to when the next party would be and what were the things that we needed to do. The answers being - sometime at the beginning of March and - relaying the mattings -amongst other little things. Jerry Hack especially, is going to find it difficult to wait this long!