Bere Alston Bowling Club – Monday 17th February at 19:30bar opens from 19:00
ALL WELCOME £1 payable at the door (to cover room hire)
‘NOT a Voyage for Madmen’ is about an ordinary sailing couple going long-distance cruising….if ‘ordinary’ is a 21,000 mile, 3 year voyage across the North and South Atlantic! They claim it is a not story about monstrous waves, hurricanes, capsizes, but the truth may be even more daring!
Dandelion departing Weir Quay, bound for Tierra Del Fuego
Experienced sailors, John and Sue Chadwick decided to set sail in their Pan Oceanic 46, Dandelion, round Cape Horn and back. They set off in 2016 on this adventure. “We weren’t pitchpoled, dismasted, attacked by pirates or capsized” John says, but the story of their adventure is as gripping as any you will hear.
Another adventurous couple!
Setting sail south to Spain, Portugal, Madeira, the Cape Verdes and then across the Atlantic to Brazil. In 2017 they cruised Brazil and the remote and tortuous rivers of Salvador. They pressed on to Uruguay and into the River Plate and put into Buenos Aires for storm repairs. 2018 saw them cruise further south to Argentina, Patagonia and to anchor in Bahia Buen Suceso in Tierra del Fuego. It was here they lost their kedge anchor – just like Captain Cook. Then on to the Beagle Channel, Cape Horn and the Falklands. They then followed a passage north to the Caribbean and back across the Atlantic returning in September 2019.
Bere Alston Bowling Club – 13th January at 19:30bar opens from 19:00
ALL WELCOME £1 payable at the door
John was the last person to drive a team of huskies in Antarctica. He worked for two and a half years as Base Leader in the South Shetlands and was invited by the British Antarctic Survey to undertake a last sledge journey on the continent as the representative of hundreds of past drivers.
Born in the countryside of Devonshire, England, he studied Geography in Bristol and made his M.Phil in Polar studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge.
In 1960, at the age of 23, he first time voyaged down to the Antarctic on the Royal Research ship, John Biscoe, to work for two and ½ years with the British Antarctic Survey. He was the base leader and magistrate of Deception Island, South Shetlands and in charge of building the historical hangar at Base B, which is now a historic monument.
In 1962 he spent a year as dog driver, supporting first survey to Adelaide Island, where he lived in a small base of six persons and 54 dogs. After his time in Antarctica he worked as a teacher for polar history and as adult University Lecturer at the University of Exeter. In 1993 he was invited back to Antarctica to sledge the last dogs on the continent. During this time he took 10 m ice core temperatures for climate studies.
Images from the annual New Year’s Day walk are now available in the Events Pages. We are indebted to Mike Street and Doug Hinge for providing the photography!
This year’s event was kindly hosted again by Jim and Pru Barnes. The day was grey, but warm and dry with good visibility. About 30 members walked along the levee, around the river edge and then up and over the local hills.
The intrepid party returned to a delicious soup and buffet lunch at South Hooe, along with additional food donated by many of the participants. There were copious quantities of cider and tea drunk and a great time was had by all.
The Weir Quay Community Watersports Hub Club Ltd Winter Newsletter has now been published.
This edition covers some of the latest work taking place at the facility along with the (what is rapidly becoming) rather controversial issue of what colour the shower and toilet cubicles should be………
You can download your copy of the newsletter below.
Our annual New Year’s ramble around South Hooe is a great way to blow away the festive cobwebs and work off any seasonal over-indulgences!
We meet at South Hooe at 10:45 am on Wednesday 1st January for an 11:00 am start.
The plan is to walk round the beautiful South Hooe peninsular followed by a get-together at Jim and Pru’s home to share hot soup and lunch. Whether you’re a long-established club member or have recently joined, the event is a great way to get to know your fellow members as it’s an easy going route that will leave you with enough breath to keep the conversation going!
Please bring any left-over Christmas fare or something else to contribute to the lunch.
The draft minutes of this year’s AGM can now be found on the Member’s Pages of this website. This link will take you there; https://wqsc.wordpress.com/members-pages/
Any amendments should be sent to the Club Secretary at the address accompanying the draft minutes.
Members who have forgotten the 2019 Member’s Pages password can find it in their membership confirmation email from MemberMojo or by requesting it by emailing info.wqsc@gmail.com.
Saturday 16th November saw a large group of club members embark on the first working party of the winter. A team suitably armed with an impressive array of heavy duty garden tools, mainly concentrated on cutting back the hedge and small trees to open up the view of the river.
The effect has been quite dramatic and the whole of the river from Cargreen to Holes Hole can now be seen from the BBQ area alongside the boatshed. Next year’s “Pop Up Barbeques” should be even more impressive in the late evening sun!
Eschewing the big boys’ tools of hedge trimmers and chainsaws, our commodore bends his back into the daunting task of doing the dishes…..
A big thank you to everyone that took part. Its amazing what a motivated team can achieve in a short period of time.
This Saturday saw the start of the Cadets’ fundraising activities aimed at raising the money for next years trip aboard the Johanna Lucretia.
“The cadets did a great job today and there were many comments from members of the public, saying how helpful, how sensible they were and what a great thing to be doing. said Katherine Duncan. “Several cadets came back to Alan’s house to do the count and we raised just over £281, which is great, considering it was very quiet at times.”
Well done to all the Cadets. They all seemed to have a good time! Thank you also to Sue Coomber for coming along to help and to the staff at Tesco’s that were very encouraging to the cadets, but most of all, thank you to all of the customers that supported us.”
We are delighted to announce that we have now agreed a new 2020 tall ships adventure for WQSC Cadets aboard the Island Sailing Trust’s Johanna Lucretia. And now the fundraising begins in earnest!
This Saturday (16th November), the cadets will be running a sponsored bag pack at the Tavistock Tesco supermarket from 10:00am to 2:00pm. If you are tied up with the club’s Boat Park working party this Saturday, then you will get a second chance when the team do another sponsored bag pack at Morrisons on Sunday 8th December.
The Plymouth based Island Trust, has been supporting deserving young people for over 40 years and provides life-enhancing, residential and day-sailing activities for young people. They have a special focus on those with special needs, disabilities, and those experiencing hardship and deprivation.
The Trust operates three large traditionally rigged sailing boats – Moosk, Pegasus and Johanna Lucretia, each with her own distinctive style and character, and all of them perfect for sail training.
Katherine Duncan takes up the story of our search for a new tall ships adventure for the club’s cadets; “The Tall Ships team were very disappointed when we realised that Trinity were no longer taking bookings. It seems a great loss to the tall ship sailing community.
As soon as we found out, Alan set-to looking for other Tall Ship sailing experiences we could offer our very keen cadets.
After many discussions, phone calls and emails, we settled on a voyage with The Island Sailing Trust on board the Johanna Lucretia. I think you will agree it looks like a beautiful boat.
Johanna Lucretia is the latest addition to The Island Trust fleet and is the largest of their vessels. As it is currently the only UK flagged topsail schooner in sail training, it draws attention wherever it goes. The boat is 96ft long, has a beam of 18.1ft and a draught of 9.3ft. It will sleep 12 guests as well as crew. It was built in Belgium in 1945, and has quite a history. The Island Trust bought it in 2018. The Johanna Lucretia has had a few appearances on the silver screen – most notable the 1978 spy thriller The Riddle of the Sands and the 2006 film, Amazing Grace, a drama about William Wilberforce’s campaign to end the slave trade.
The Island Trust is based in Plymouth and were incredibly flexible, basically creating and planning a voyage just for our cadets. The hope is that the cadets will be able to sail further afield that on Leader – maybe making it to the Isles of Scilly or across The Channel and definitely some night sailing is planned.
The voyage is more expensive than last years but we have lots of fundraising already booked and more ideas in the pipeline. If you are available to show a friendly face when the cadets are bag packing it makes a huge difference in their moral! We are also planning another cake sale at the Bere Ferrers Community Shop – watch out for info about dates. The cadets from last year’s voyage have given several talks to organisations in the community that donated funds to help with the cost with the Trinity voyage, and have approached these with gusto! As WQSC were so supportive they have arranged to do a talk as part of your winter talk series, if anyone would like to ask the cadets any questions or find out more about their experiences please come along on the 16th March 2020.”
Weir Quay Sailing Club 
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