Budworth Sailing Club

All the fleets enjoyed a lovely autumn day on Sunday. After a foggy start to the morning  the sun broke through, and light wind appeared at lunchtime, kept up through the afternoon and provided us with a beuatiful sunset across the Mere to finish, as you can see!

On Tuesday Channel 4 hired the club to make a commercial advertising their on demand on line TV service using some of the cast of Hollyoaks.

On Monday a large floating pontoon was constructed to use as a shooting platform.

On Tuesday the whole of club became a film set. The bar became the casts’ dressing room!

The clubs rescue boats were out on the water all day.

The morning was spent filming out on the lake as a RIB was driven back and forth by a stunt(!) driver and a crew of stand ins and a dummy. The stand in was ill so they couldn’t get a stand in for the stand in hence the dummy!

The afternoon was spent on the GP jetty filming a mixture of extras dressed as fishermen, more dummies, and the real cast of Hollyoaks. Late in the afternoon the pontoon went back on the water with the Hollyoak cast standing in a RIB built into the pontoon. As the light was going by this time shooting was carried out under lights and it rather looked like a large UFO was trundling across the lake.

They finished filming just short of 8pm.

Apparently all this will result in a 60 second advert that will appear on TV in about a month.

Needless to say the clubs funds have received a considerable boost.     

As soon as we have them I will post pictures into the gallery.  

Finally a big thanks to Steve Kelham who put an awful lot of effort into this, not only being down there on Monday but quite literally all day Tuesday.  

All are invited to join us for the Autumn Open Series, which starts on Sunday 30th Oct and runs for 8 weeks.

For an application form, just click the icon !

There was a great (gusty) breeze and sun on 22nd October for the Solo open day. We had 5 solos out, two brought down by Dave Winder (manufacturer), one by Chris Gillard (NW rep), Ted Garner’s and one loaned by Tony Sampson. Lots of people came down to try them out, there was some racing and fun had by all.

Many thanks to Roger Gardner, Ted Garner and Ian Noble for organising the day and Vanessa for the great food.

The proposal to adopt the Solo as a new fleet has been accepted by the committee and they can race in the Open Autumn series, and next year on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Congratulations to Matt Bromley and Andrea Morgan for winning the Bronze fleet at the inlands last weekend. They finished a very respectable 30th out of 66 in a very strong fleet.

A proposal has been submitted to introduce the Solo as a new boat into the Club. With that in mind an Open day has been arranged, starting at 12 noon on Saturday 22 October 2011 , the intention being to allow interested parties to sample the boat on the water and talk to those who know about owning and sailing a Solo.

Invitations have been sent to three Solo builders local to the club. So far one has said he will be coming and bringing perhaps a couple of boats and Ted Garner has kindly agreed to bring his own boat down to the club. I’m hopeful that Chris Gilliard , the Northern Solo rep will be able to attend so that he can extol the virtues and benefits of owning a Solo.

Ideally, should there be enough boats available, the intention is to put on some racing for the Solos at some point in the day.

Well done to all the Budworth sailors!

Fantastic results this year - (the best results ever??)

In a fleet of 69 boats, racing continuously for 24 hours,  the ‘A’ team achieved a fantastic 3rd position and the “B” team an excellent 16th, a tremendous improvement on last years result (26th).

Well done also to the “C” team - the first time we have entered 3 complete teams for this gruelling event.

The “A” team sailed 82 laps, and won

And with 78 laps sailed, the “B” team also won

Pictures of the event can be seen here: Budworth at the 24hr Race

There was an excellent turn out for this event. Unfortunately there was no wind but the alternative activity of walking around the Mere helped create an appetite for the curry. Some others supported the bar!

Food was followed by the prize giving, which included thanks to Craig for keeping the scores, emailing us each week and organising the prizes. Vanessa for providing the meal each Wednesday evening, Emma for staffing the bar and Bill for organising the event.

People are already looking forward to a successful series in 2012.