Solway Yacht Club Winter party and Prize-giving celebrating 2024
by Ian Purkis 20 Jan 09:10 GMT
Winding as fast as they can - Solway YC Winter party and Prize-giving © Nicola McColm
Celebrating the past year, the Club's now annual mid-winter party had a real racing highlight that pitted sailing skills (of sorts), with Cadets and senior members battling it out for line honours, but more below.
Held in a packed Kippford Village Hall, it followed on from the RNLI's SOS Soup and Sandwiches lunch. The Yacht Club party was the opportunity for the Commodore, Scott McColm, to report on the 2024 successes on the water in what had been a year of great activity with club sailing, open meetings and the regular Cadet and Kippford Weeks.
It was also the opportunity for the Club to pay tribute to the late Lindsay Tosh, past Commodore and driving force behind many of the Club's achievements in recent years who so sadly passed away last September.
After Scott's review, prize-giving got under way for all the winners along with special prizes for the members who'd contributed most to Club life, on or off the water. Organised by the Sailing Secretary, John Broadbent, the Commodore started proceedings by handing over to Elaine Ross to present the prizes for the Cadets (only) Racing Championship, a new innovation held last year. Toby Iglehart won overall, awarded the Powell Cup, with Finn Harris second (both sailing ILCA4s) and Katie Brown third in her Topper.
Then it was on to the seniors with many popular figures collecting trophies and prizes for their impressive race results. Most unusually, the most prestigious award for the Club Championship was tied between Keith Veasey in his Finn and Toby Iglehart in his ILCA4, the Tordoff Cup having both their names engraved on it, a first in its many years, Toby modestly celebrating his double Cadet and Adult Championship wins.
Next up, awards were given for the large yacht cruiser classes with the Sunbird Trophy for longest voyage going to Tony Walker MBE for his passage up the West Coast to the Hebrides. Donald Macintyre scooped the best kept yacht or motor-boat award while the "Sailing By" vase for greatest contribution by a non-committee member was awarded to Neil Munro, organiser of the yacht fleet with their cruises-in-company to the English coast and further West along the Solway.
Special awards went to Simon Blissett and Richard Bishop, the most frequent safety boat driver (helm) and crew respectively, who made the whole sport possible throughout the year, so big thank you to them and all the other safety boat team volunteers.
After a buffet, the competition started. Indoor yacht racing seems an unlikely sport, but the Commodore had devised a team racing event where six miniature yachts on strings were towed across the floor, but only by the string being wound round a small piece of dowel, using only the "helmsman's" fingers while remaining seated. Speed of winding determined the boat speed, and it wasn't very fast, but nevertheless it quickly became very competitive with lots of spectator support and rivalry.
Each team supplied several helms taking it in turns to compete and after a "normal" yacht racing series, the teams' aggregate result determined the winners. It didn't come as any great surprise that young fingers could "twiddle" faster so the teams with more cadets came out on top, but to celebrate another great Solway Yacht Club success, there were prizes all round!
We look forward to another exciting year on and off the water in 2025 with sailing restarting at the end of March.