Solway Yacht Club working party 2025
by Ian Purkis 10 Jun 2025 07:56 BST
Solway YC working party, starting to make the club accessible to all © Ian Purkis
June 7th marked a significant milestone in the Club's long-term development, starting a new project to open our sport to all. A working party of members, age from young Finlay (11) and others rather older, and led by the Commodore, Scott McColm, carried out a range of tasks.
The main task was excavating and removing the flowerbed and dwarf wall ready for building work to start, creating access for all to changing, showering and toilet facilities. Volunteers worked hard and were rewarded with "objectives achieved", followed by a superb barbecue and spread provided by the Social Secretary, Liz Train and her team.
The Club is hugely grateful to the Dumfries and Galloway Coastal Benefit Fund for the substantial grant towards phase one of making the clubhouse fully accessible to all, including wheelchair users. It will also have significant safeguarding benefits for children and vulnerable adults by providing segregated facilities. Saturday's working party met the first condition of receiving the grant; work had to have started by 1st August and now it has!
The work was greatly helped by the generous support of the Solway Skip and Plant Hire who provided a mini-digger free of charge, given the project's objectives for the disabled.
By Sunday it was back on the water for sailing proper to resume with one of a series of pursuit races where the slowest rated boat starts first, and the rest give chase. The Race Officer, Stewart Biggar, set a course to avoid an unfair tidal advantage to any competitor and so, as "scratch boat", Toby Iglehart was the first starter in his ILCA6, followed by Gary Arkley and his crew, Avril, in their new Hawk 20. Unfortunately, Richard Colbeck in an ILCA7 was an early retirement with a broken tiller, but over the hundred-minute race no-one, not even Steve Gaughan and crew in the fast-closing Osprey, caught Toby.
The race was also notable for the first outing of the Club's newly acquired safety boat, as yet unnamed, as well as a first sail of the year for one of the Flying Fifteen fleet, out to dust off winter cobwebs.