about us
Nobody here started knowing what they were doing
Some members had never set foot on a boat. Some sailed as
teenagers and came back to it thirty years later. Some turned up
having just bought something and with a great many questions. All three are normal.
I’ve never been on a boat
You don’t need experience, kit, or anyone’s
permission. You need a berth on somebody
else’s boat, and those come up
Where to start
I sailed years ago
Dinghies as a teenager, a flotilla
holiday, a week as crew. It counts for
more than you think.
I’m thinking of buying
Ask before you buy. There are people here
who’ve done it well and badly, and both will
tell you about it.
I’ve already got one
Then the club is looking for you. Owners are what make the rally programme work — and you’ll never be short of crew.
IF YOU’VE NEVER BEEN ON A BOAT
The first time is on somebody else’s boat
The way onto the water is a rally — a weekend when club boats arrange to meet somewhere, usually the Solent or across to the Isle of Wight. Owners take people who haven’t got a boat. That’s how a fair number of members first got afloat, and several of them now own boats of their own.
Most members joined without owning anything, and a good number without ever having sailed. Nobody will test you and nobody expects you to know the words.
You don’t need kit beyond warm layers and shoes that won’t mark a deck. You won’t be asked to do anything you can’t.
What you will be asked for is a share of the weekend — usually £30 to £50 a head towards the berthing, the fuel and the food the skipper buys, with the Saturday dinner booked separately through the club. Nobody makes anything out of taking crew; it’s split between everyone on board. Occasionally the club charters a boat when there aren’t enough, and a weekend on one of those is nearer £200 to £250.
Places come up through the year, and the way to find one is to say on a Thursday evening that you’d like to go.
IF YOU SAILED YEARS A GO
It comes back faster
than the confidence does
Dinghies as a teenager, a flotilla holiday, one week as crew two decades ago — it’s the most common route into this club, and it counts for more than you’d expect. Boat handling is a physical memory. It returns.
What’s changed in the meantime is mostly the electronics: chart plotters, AIS, weather forecasts on a telephone. Tides, buoyage and the rules of the road have not moved, and several of the winter talks are aimed squarely at people filling exactly those gaps.
A weekend on somebody else’s boat will tell you more about
where you actually are than a winter of reading.
So the advice is the same as for a complete beginner: go on a rally as crew, and let the rest sort itself out afterwards.
If you are thinking of buying
Ask the room before
you sign anything
There are members here who have bought well, bought badly, and kept boats on the south coast for thirty years. All of them will talk about it at length, and none of them are selling you anything.
The questions worth asking before the price is agreed are the ones about the years afterwards: what it costs to keep a boa that size afloat for a year, what a survey will and won’t tell you, and whether the boat you’ve found suits the sailing you actually intend to do rather than the sailing you’re currently imagining.
The cheapest advice you will ever get about buying a boat is
free, on a Thursday, from someone who already owns one.
Bring the advert. Somebody will have an opinion about it before you’ve finished reading it out.
Six words you’ll hear on a Thursday
Nobody will stop to explain them, so here they are
Rally
A weekend when club boats arrange to meet
somewhere. Usually the Solent.
Crew
Anyone aboard who isn’t the skipper. On a club rally that often means a beginner.
Berth
Two meanings, used interchangeably — a bed on board, and a space in a marina.
Passage
Getting from one place to another. The planning beforehand is half of it.
Burgee
The club’s own flag, flown from the boat. It’s in most of the photographs.
Springs and neaps
The big tides and the small ones. It matters more than you’d expect.
All three start the same way
Come to a Thursday evening. Nothing to book, nothing to pay, and nobody will ask you to sign anything. Say at the door that you saw the website, and someone will put a coffee in your hand.