New sailors take to the water at Itchenor

We held a highly successful open day on Sunday as part of the Royal Yachting Association's Push The Boat Out Initiative, writes Itchenor Sailing Club rear-commodore sailing Chris Blevins.
XODs were out in force at Itchenor SC's open day / Picture by Chris HattonXODs were out in force at Itchenor SC's open day / Picture by Chris Hatton
XODs were out in force at Itchenor SC's open day / Picture by Chris Hatton

More than 70 visitors attended the day with around 30 of them going afloat to experience racing in the beautiful Chichester Harbour.

The threatened rain stayed away, the sun shone and a gentle breeze filled in at midday. This all underlines that our season is well and truly under way. This coming bank holiday weekend, we have races scheduled for all our three keelboat classes and six dinghy classes – the exception being the RS800s who are visiting Hayling Island.

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The younger members of Itchenor will be enjoying the Mirror Max Mission that is designed to cater for newer sailors who are starting their racing careers.

XODs were out in force at Itchenor SC's open day / Picture by Chris HattonXODs were out in force at Itchenor SC's open day / Picture by Chris Hatton
XODs were out in force at Itchenor SC's open day / Picture by Chris Hatton

Early in June, we hold a Mirror class open meeting which will serve as a taster for the Mirror National Championships that we are honoured to be hosting in August.

Then we are looking forward to the visit of Bembridge Redwings as part of our Keelboat Invitational event.

June has two of our major events - Points Week and Schools Week.

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Points Week is our annual series of races for our keelboats. We anticipate over 50 Sunbeams, Swallows and XODs will enjoy racing in the harbour at its very best.

Entries are flooding in for our Schools Week Championships, which will see students race in Fevas, Fireflies and International 420s. We expect a record number of entries for this year’s event sponsored by MPI and supported by JDX.

Off the water, on Saturday (May 28), we are delighted that Itchenor member Sophie Ainsworth and her sailing partner Charlotte Dobson, who have been selected to represent Team GB in the 49erFX at this summer’s Olympics in Rio, will be talking to us about their campaign.

July has an exciting packed programme, but more of that next month.

CHRIS BLEVINS

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