Sailing club suggestions in South West

[eddystone]

We are in the process of moving from the Midlands in 2 stages and barring house purchase capsizing will be in West Devon in a few weeks. That brings me a lot closer to mooring on the Tamar but we have various boats at Draycote Water near Rugby. I rarely sail my Solution Dinghy so I'll probably keep that at new home but there is daughters RS Aero, wife's Flying Fifteen and a K1. Favoured option is Starcross on the Exe estuary for the Aero/K1 but haven't found anywhere for F15. The nearest place with a fleet of F15s is in Poole harbour but that's too far. Teign Corinthians YC mention keelboats but that would involve being left on a mooring.

Any other ideas that we haven't thought of - I don't think we are going to find anything like Draycote that can accommodate all in one place.

 

[Frogmogman]

A quick look on Flying Fifteen.org shows that although they do not have a fleet as such, the Royal Torbay YC is rated as 'a location where flying 15s are sailed'

Flying Fifteen Fleets

 

[oldbloke]

Unless you are really, really attached to your particular boats I would consider approaching your quest differently. The south west is bigger than you think and, especially in the summer, it can take a long while to get places.
Teignmouth Corinthians have a couple of K1s as does Wimbleball. TCYC sail mostly in the estuary which is very tidal and has a lot of weed and mud. Wimbleball is a nice big valley reservoir but it's a long way from anywhere.
Starcross is probably the best for dinghy racing but no good for keelboat.
Salcombe probably has the next best racing but again too much weed for the K1 and complicated and expensive to get a mooring for the fifteen.
Road Ford Lake is lovely and would cope with both keelboat but I don't think the racing is up to much.
My advice would be to see which local club you like and gets boats to suit

 

[Capt Popeye]

Might mention /advise that TCYC has basically two parts; the dinghies are stored / sailed in /from a compound up river at Coombe Cellars a village with a new TCYC Club House yet to be fully opened opened ; launching is 2.5 hrs either side HW , maybe more they are an active RYA club running many courses for most ages

The TCYC has an imposing Club House directly on the Sea Front, with certain facilities what one might like from a Club; a weekly Lunch plus drinks; the Keel / Yachts are usually moored in the Harbour Entrance on Teign Harbour Moorings as there is a Bridge that restricts craft with fixed /tall masts venturing up river; they often in season either race or sail in company to Torbay

The river Exe has one bridge about 10 miles upstream above Topsham no practicle height restrictions

The Starcross Yacht Club are sittuated on the West Bank of the river exe; think that its on the Powderham Estate, the Earl of Devon methinks, sittuated mid way between Topsham and Exmouth, they race, duno what but a Google might state which /what ? they have secure storage on site; they appear to be an active Dinghy Club with poss greater area to sail in /on than the Teign; local free parking

 

[Debenair]

You don’t say where in West Devon, but you would not in my opinion want to be driving from say Tavistock to Teignmouth to sail.
Starcross is very tide dependant, indeed so is the whole Exe. Teignmouth is an acquired taste. Torquay probably has the best facilities although Torbay in a strong wind from the Easterly quadrant is interesting. Salcombe is beautiful, challenging but impossible to park in season. Whether the FF could be kept ashore with the Yawls I don’t know but it is not a class sailed down here. You may need to bin it.

 

[andsarkit]

I sailed University dinghies on the Exe and kept my boat there for a while. At high tide it is a great place to sail but very restrictive when the tide goes out. The university dinghies later moved to Roadford reservoir where there is a more controlled environment for match racing but not as much fun for learning to sail.Roadford
It might depend on where in Devon you intend to live.

 

[jdc]

Exmouth has a first rate sailing club.

 

[TernVI]

If yopu want to race 2 person dayboats, swap the effing 15 for a Squib at Royal Dart?
Salcombe is a good club.

 

[eddystone]

Salcombe and Dartmouth rather too far away. Roadford would be closest, Starcross doable.

 

[James_Calvert]

Undoubtedly if you want to sail in Salcombe, the South Hams is the area to live in.

But it's not that far away from West Devon, some stalwart club members from Yelverton campaigned and won their dinghy series a couple of years ago. And another keen Plymouth based member used to sail his cruiser over every weekend or so as a base for his dinghy racing.

The very competitive Yawl fleets are dry sailed these days, like I've seen Flying 15s at Bewl Water.

The Solo fleet is one of the most competitive in the UK.

Have a wander through the 2019 race results for a preCovid idea of the range of boats that are regularly raced in the handicap classes, Aeros among them.

Class racing at various opens, Merlins of course with their own week and Silver Tiller events, and more class racing at the summer Yacht Club and Town Regattas.

Have a look at the website and get in touch.

Salcombe Yacht Club

 

[Tintin]

Cargreen on the Tamar has a dinghy fleet, dinghy storage, good launching, and river moorings for bigger yachts. Worth a look.

Cargreen Yacht Club

 

[TernVI]

When thinking about joining a club, I tend to look for racing results online, to see what's actually being sailed.
If you're serious about sailing, moving to a part of Devon where 'Roadford is closest' sounds a bit wrong to me.
I'd suggest visiting several times before committing.

Some people join lake clubs just for the WInter.

Sailing in the South West is different from Mid England. A lot is dictated by tide and a lot shuts down for 4 months in the winter.
Some of the clubs are quite 'local' in their membership and what they offer.
Some are more about moorings and crusier racing and dinghy racing is a second-class add on.
Some clubs, you have to take your dinghy home for 5 months so they can fill the compound with cruisers.

While people in the Midlands think nothing of driving 40 miles to go sailing, in Dorset at weekends that doesn't work well, I expect Devon is worse,

 

[Ingwe]

As others have said you need to get your head around how long travelling between different places is going to take especially in season - I live in Tavistock and if your moving somewhere close to here I wouldn't consider basing a boat outside of the Plymouth area as otherwise you will end up spending more time travelling than sailing - even if that means changing one of the boats to suit local fleets.

The dinghy side is fairly straightforward, the three main fleets in Plymouth area are at Saltash Sailing club, Hooe Point Sailing club which are both river based and then more of a mixed set of clubs offering races on Plymouth Sound itself (RWYC etc) - I am a bit out of the dinghy scene now to know exactly what is sailed where but you can look online to see results etc or join the "Plymouth Sound Dinghies" Facebook group and ask on there.

Keelboat sailing wise the closest local one design fleet will be the Devon yawls at the Yealm yacht club - but again I would check how long it is going to take you to drive there . In Plymouth itself there isn't a proper one design keelboat fleet we have 3 Seascape 18's and a couple of squibs based at Queen Anne's battery and raced with either the Plym Yacht Club or the RWYC, but we are generally handicap racing against the bigger boats. You can PM me if you wanted to try a Seascape at some point. The only other one design keelboat sailing in the area is in J24's at Saltash sailing club .

 

[eddystone]

New house (god willing) may sound landlocked to you but it's approximately 210 miles and at least 3 hours closer to my mooring at Cargreen than before. As to travel in the Midlands being quicker you've clearly not sat in traffic on the A5 near Hinckley.

 

[TernVI]

If you're going to move clubs, you have to decide whether you want to travel a long way to race in a particular fleet, or race handicap, or change boat to fit in with what other people race.
how seriously do you expect to race?
In mt club, we have some people who just race in the club, some others are off to Weymouth all the time with their kids training and racing at squad level in Lasers or whatever. Other members do some open events. Some have a boat of a different class at the club and keep their pride and joy on a trailer for open meetings.
Dry-sailing small keelboats isn't that popular on the coast. Most local sailing clubs don't have the space or facilities. I've sailed at Starcross a few times in a few different dinghy classes, don't think they can accommodate dry sailing FF or K1, and I don't knowthat either would be my choice to race against what they do sail.

Really depends what you want from it all.
I've raced in quite a few of these places and I really don't 'get' some of them. I've got a mate who used to race in one of the Plymouth clubs, he's about 4 miles from the actual ocean, with waves and all that, yet spends far too much time sailing up some terrible river, crap wind, no waves, stupid amounts of current and brown water. But his dinghy sailing is mostly a wednesday night after work thing before heading for the bar. The 'real' sailing is more about cruisers at weekends there.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Exmouth has a first rate sailing club.

Exe SC is probably the top dinghy sailing club in Devon, but may be the wrong side of the river for the OP. Salcombe also has a very active dinghy section and may be more conveniently located.

 

[TernVI]

Exe SC is probably the top dinghy sailing club in Devon, but may be the wrong side of the river for the OP. Salcombe also has a very active dinghy section and may be more conveniently located.

Exe, Starcross, Salcombe. Lyme, Paignton....
Many good clubs not much merit in arguing which is 'top'.
There's always North Devon....

 

[longjohnsilver]

Exe, Starcross, Salcombe. Lyme, Paignton....
Many good clubs not much merit in arguing which is 'top'.
There's always North Devon....

Agreed, its what suits the OP best.

 

[Moodysailor]

Interesting post, I'm following as we are literally (1 week) away from moving from the Midlands to Teingmouth ourselves. We already keep "mothership" on the Dart and are members of Dartmouth Yacht Club for cruising and social, but are thinking of joining TCYC for dinghy sailing.
Being brand new to the area I've no experience or idea what are good or bad clubs, so sorry I can't contribute to that but being from Dorset (Poole) originally, I fully understand what we are in for with traffic and journey times!

 

[Capt Popeye]

Hi Mr MS might suggest that after your move to Teignmouth, if interested in the TCYC for Dinghy Sailing /Racing an idea would be to visit Coombe Cellars on weekends around 2 hours before HW where our Dinghy Racers will be participating as their Racing Series has now started up again from there.

Once arrived at Coombe Cellars you cannot miss the TCYC dinghy park and their activities.

The references to the Tides going out leaving just Mud are correct, but observe that the Dinghy Racers have had their perhaps 3 heats/races by that time and all want to go home /elsewhere by then, so perhaps only issues for the Cruising who have to wait far longer to be able to return ashore ?