Combined Invitation Keelboat Weekend at Itchenor SC on 1-2 June
by Itchenor Sailing Club 21 May 2013 10:06 BST
1-2 June 2013
XOD's racing at Itchenor © ISC
The weekend of the 1st / 2nd June is a big weekend for a small Sailing Club in Chichester Harbour!
Whilst the racers and cruisers may be going "Around the Island" on the Saturday - Itchenor Sailing Club and its three keelboat classes are hosting 2 other visiting keelboat classes from Bembridge for the first time in their history.
The Redwings and the Bembridge One Designs (BOD's) are coming over to the mainland for a racing and social weekend.
The Bembridge fleets are leaving early to ensure they don't get caught up with the fast yachts as they come round Bembridge Ledge and hope to arrive at Itchenor, having been finished at West Pole at the entrance to Chichester Harbour, in plenty of time for lunch. Following this all five fleets will race in Chichester Harbour with guest-crews so our visitors will have someone with local knowledge of the sandbanks on board!
Back for tea and a formal Dinner plus prize giving with two especially commissioned paintings will complete the day.
On the Sunday all fleets gather and sail outside the Harbour for their own fleet racing with the Bembridge fleets (and support boats) returning home. Hopefully the weather will be kind to all of us on the sea competing on a level playing field.
Itchenor SC has the largest number of keelboats in the country racing at all states of the tide (as well as the largest fleet of Mirror dinghies). The Solent Sunbeams, in their 90th year in 2013, the largest of the Westmacott designs of the 1920's; the National Swallow Class, which sailed in the 1947 Olympics, won by an Itchenor sailor; and the ever-popular XOD's.
If you are interested in joining one of the fleets and want to come for a sail, contact the Club Office on 01243 512400