Pwllheli Sailing Club is a yacht club in Pwllheli, Wales, founded in 1958. Over the years its clubhouse has moved several times, and it has also become an organiser of national and international yachting and dinghy sailing events.
A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting.
Pwllheli is a community and the main market town of the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd, north-western Wales. It had a population of 4,076 in 2011 of whom a large proportion, 81%, are Welsh speaking. Pwllheli is the place where Plaid Cymru was founded. It is the birthplace of the Welsh poet Sir Albert Evans-Jones.
After a year's development Pwllheli Sailing Club has a new events centre (as of July 2015). The £8.5million investment came from the European Union to help develop the area, and the academy has been a host to multiple events since its opening.
Location
The club is located on the western side of the harbour near to the Glanydon Beach, and is within walking distance of the town. The club has dinghy storage compounds adjacent to the beach, and boats launch from the beach.
Harbour
The club overlooks the harbour and marina.
Principal officers
Officers serve a two-year terms; the Vice Commodore becomes the Commodore and the Rear Commodore becomes the Vice Commodore.
History
Carreg yr Imbill – Gimlet Rock Pwllheli
The club was founded in 1958 in temporary premises to the east of Carreg yr Imbill (Gimlet Rock). In the early days membership was shared with the Gimlet Rock Club, a social club which allowed members to drink alcohol on Sundays, which was not allowed in public houses at that time. As membership split from the Gimlet Rock Club it migrated into an extension to the GRC building, and had the use of dormitory rooms on the first floor, where the "Bridge" to manage races was also located.
Carreg yr Imbill is the remains of a large diorite with pegmatite pods and quarry at Pwllheli, Gwynedd, Wales.
The Nordic Folkboat is a small sailboat, rigged as a sloop. The design of this boat was the result of a competition held by the Scandinavian Yacht Racing Union in 1942, who were hoping to create an easily sailed and low-cost boat. The competition produced no outright "winner " but, taking the best features of a number of the entries received, the organisers commissioned professional designer Tord Sundén to create a craft that met the goals of the design competition. The resulting boat went on to become an international favorite of sailors and still endures more than 70 years after its design. The first Nordic Folkboat was built in Gothenburg in Sweden, and as of 2007, more than 4000 Nordic Folkboats are still sailing around the world.
The Stella is a 'one-design' Bermuda rig sloop yacht, designed for cruising and racing by the noted yacht designer CR (Kim) Holman in 1959. The design was to the requirements of a customer who had seen the Nordic Folkboat and decided that the English east coast needed a similar vessel but modified for North Sea as opposed to Baltic conditions and a competitive racer on handicap. The prototype: Stella No. 1 La Vie en Rose was built to win the 1959 Burnham week, which she promptly did. Clinker built of mahogany or larch on oak frames.
Abersoch is a village in the community of Llanengan in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a popular coastal seaside resort, with around 800 residents, on the east-facing south coast of the Llŷn Peninsula at the southern terminus of the A499. It is about 7 miles (11 km) south-west of Pwllheli and 27 miles (43 km) south-west of the county town of Caernarfon. The village takes its name from the river, Afon Soch, which reaches the sea in the village.
The club acquired two GP14s, Frisky and Heidi, for members to borrow, and located them in the roughly-surfaced dinghy park to the east, between the clubhouse and the derelict "Old Jetty",[1] where there were twin slipways into the harbour. There was a dinghy racing programme from the early days of the club, but this was hampered by the need to borrow Jumbo, the boatyard workboat owned by Partington Marine, to act as safety boat. A seaward slipway was also installed from the dinghy park around 1970, though weather conditions meant this was rarely usable, both because it was very narrow, and because it was fringed by granite chunks from the old Gimlet Rock Quarry.
The GP14 is a popular sailing dinghy, with well over 14,000 built.
In the early 1970s Les Caddick, one of the earliest members, donated a small Dell Quay Dory and outboard, making the club self-sufficient for its safety boat. Though the major membership was for cruising and racing yachts, with many racing in the Irish Sea Offshore Racing Association's[2] annual series, the dinghy side started to increase. There was an annual Long Distance Dinghy Race to Abersoch and back, for example, and the Merlin Rocket national championships were hosted – the first such dinghy championship at Pwllheli.
A Dell Quay Dory is a small boat usually 11 to 22 foot in length. This boat design has a Cathedral Hull which is very stable when stationary on the water. The boat was manufactured by Dell Quay Marine in the UK between the 1980s and '90s. Dell Quay Marine also brought out a Eurosport model that was designed to pull a skier. A modern equivalent of the Dell Quay Dory is manufactured today by Fletcher Boats.
The Merlin Rocket is a 14 foot dinghy sailed in the United Kingdom. It is an active class, now with over 3700 boats built.
A strong relationship with New Quay Yacht Club created the annual passage race both from and to New Quay in Ceredigion, Mid Wales.
Ceredigion is a county in Wales, known prior to 1974 as Cardiganshire. During the second half of the first millennium Ceredigion was a minor kingdom. It has been administered as a county since 1282. Welsh is spoken by more than half the population. Ceredigion is considered to be a centre of Welsh culture. The county is mainly rural with over 50 miles (80 km) of coastline and a mountainous hinterland. The numerous sandy beaches, together with the long-distance Ceredigion Coast Path provide excellent views of Cardigan Bay.
Founding members
Founding members are taken from the original Articles of Association[3]
Edwin Reginald Wilson, Optician
Norman Timmins, general manager
Charles William Martin, Garage Proprietor
Thomas Linney, Hotelier (The Victoria Hotel)
Norman Parry, director
John Irwinne, director
Col Owens, Builder & Contractor
An early, if not a founding, member was Alfred Walter (Bill) Maley of the Maley & Taunton engineering company of Wednesfield
Previous Commodores
2005/2006 Gareth Hughes-Jones
Clubhouse locations
1958 to c1980 – Shared premises with the Gimlet Rock Club
c1980 to (unknown) – premises at the Gimlet Rock itself
(unknown) to 1989 – Purpose built premises opposite the lifeboat station. (Now the treatment plant)
1989 to 1997 – Marina Building
1997 to current – Current Building
In 1986 the club received funding from the Sports Lottery and the European Regional Development Fund to develop a Sailing and Events Centre.
Events
Pwllheli Sailing Club is a host to national and international sailing events.[4]
The club hosts racing for local and visiting boats all year round. The races generally start from the bridge on the treatment plant building opposite the lifeboat station and take place around buoys in Cardigan Bay within a couple of miles of the start.
The club has a committee boat used to start and finish special regattas and a number of offshore races.
↑ The names on the original Articles of Association are handwritten and difficult to read.
↑ "Pwllheli – Sail Away". BBC. Retrieved 27 October 2007. Sailing events held in Cardigan Bay include the National BT Matchracing the Optimist Nations, the J24 World and European championships, the Topper Nationals and the One Ton Cup.
↑ "International Cadet Class 2007 World Championships". UK National Class Association of the International Cadet Class. Archived from the original on 30 October 2007. Retrieved 27 October 2007. Pwllheli is one of the key venues in the UK as we believe the excellent sailing waters, coupled with the superb shore side facilities and race management, will enable sailors from all over the world to compete in an enjoyable, international competition.(John Derbyshire, RYA Racing Manager & Performance Director)
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