Netley Sailing Club being rebuilt
by Dougal Henshall 18 Dec 2017 14:24 GMT
18 December 2017
The plans for the new Netley Sailing Club building © Netley Sailing Club
Thanks to the unrelenting demands for waterside locations, the shores of the western side of Southampton Water, once past Hythe, feature the spreading sprawl of the twinkly (at least at night) oil refineries and petro-chemical complexes. Coming back up the eastern side of the estuary from Hamble, the shoreline is again dominated by the BP oil storage facility, then the highly developed area of industrial estates that include the RYA Headquarters. But between the British Aerospace site and the start of residential Netley, is a wonderful oasis of green – the Royal Victoria Country Park, with its crowning glory of the old hospital Chapel. And there, just down on the shoreline, is now a... site of total devastation! It was like having the Hornet Nationals to end all Hornet Nationals...
The background to this story can be found nestling in the grounds of the Country Park, where Netley Sailing Club started life in the 1970s as an Army Sailing Centre, initially to serve the needs of the military personnel who worked at the remaining buildings of the 'old' Army hospital. In typical Services fashion, nothing gets wasted, nor is there such thing as 'idle hands'. Some old squash courts were identified at Aldershot and the Army engineers at REME got to practice on real buildings; the wooden structure was taken down, moved to Netley and re-erected and with the addition of a bar, kitchen and Race Office. Netley Sailing Club was in business and with the Army camp shrinking its presence, members of the public were soon sailing there.
In the decades that followed, the Army's involvement at the Club lessened and is now non-existent, leaving the club to continue to develop and grow as a forward-looking club. A buoyant membership that is proving attractive to top sailors and family members alike, the club is consistently bucking many of the downward trends that seem to be the growing malaise in the sport.
With the on-site camping and friendly helpfulness, the club is also a gem on the open meeting and championship circuit. Netley might lack the profile of some other clubs in the area but they punch well above their weight when it comes to running events. Many of the RS classes have been repeat visitors, the Shearwaters (twice), Darts and F18s asked the club to run their Championships, whilst Hornets, Kestrels, Bytes, Phantoms, Miracles and many others have enjoyed the combination of good racing afloat and a party atmosphere ashore.
Sadly, even the staunchest supporter of the club would struggle to deny that the structure of the club was well past its sell by date and when the South Coast was battered by fierce storms two winters ago, many were surprised to see the clubhouse still standing. There had long been plans to replace the building, but because of the extremely sensitive nature of the area (part of the site includes an SSSI) simply building a new clubhouse was fraught with complexities. The path to resolving this situation has been lengthy, with sorting the finance running hand in hand with agreeing an acceptable design for the new clubhouse. After all, this will be a 'signature' site, viewable from both the water and the Country Park, so the completed building will also need to reflect pleasing architectural values.
Over the last few years, sound management from within the club helped support the stream of new revenue that came in from the membership and fund-raising activities. During the 2017 season, the members worked tirelessly to keep the old club standing, ensuring that the usual programme of sailing and shore activities could continue apace whilst the final plans and contracts were agreed.
And now, at long last, the dreams of the Club's membership have been answered, for once demolition work started, the fabric of the club was torn down very quickly. Even when proceeding with extreme care to not create any impact on the local environment, it took just 48 hours for the building to taken apart, bit by bit. To further reduce any localised effects, the remains of the club were then removed from site for recycling elsewhere.
Now the old building has completely gone, work has already started on preparing the base for the new building, which will be taking shape early in the new year. 2018 will be a testing season for all at Netley, as the intention is to maintain a full programme of club racing even as the work is taking place. Once the interior is finished, the members at Netley will be able to start enjoying the rewards of all their hard work and efforts. With the upstairs bar and lounge opening out onto a wide balcony looking out over the water, it is a confident prediction that this will be one of 'the' places for enjoyable club sailing on the central south coast. Looking to the future, Netley Sailing Club will again be 'open for business' and looking to welcome back the many friendly classes that count the club highly amongst their list of desirable locations.