Georgie Hill, one of our longstanding members, continues to fly the flag for female sailors at Ulley, even if it is temporarily under the Lerwick burgee!  After a relatively successful youth career (even though she didn't start competetive sailing till she was 14, and without any family history in the sport), in which she won the Splash National Championships and the RYA Regional Young Sailor of the Year in 2000, she went on to success in University Sailing, gaining  Newcastle University's Team Royals for a third place in the BUSA Yachting finals in 2002 and crewing for an 8th place in the 2003 BUSA fleet racing event. But she was most involved in the main university sailing sport of team racing, qualifying for the final in every year that she was a member (2 years as captain) of Newcastle Ladies team.  She was delighted to win a BUSA Bronze Medal as one of the Southampton University Ladies Team in her year there, whilst successfully studying for her MSc, in 2004/5. 

Georgie has recently changed her boat yet again to find something which suits her 7 stone frame, dripping wet, to contest the very popular RS200 class and is already achieving national success, despite sailing one of the oldest boats in the fleet. As a newcomer to the class in autumn 2005, she was allocated to the bronze division.  In February, 2006, she gained second place in the division, against good opposition, sailing in the Winter Championships at Grafham.  Now she has gone one better with first female helm, first in the bronze fleet, and 9th overall, with an outright win over 61 boats, absolutely flying in 4-5 knot gusts, in race 4 of  the first meet of the Fatface RS 200 national racing circuit at Bristol Corinthians on 25th/26th March 2006.  And it all started with a Mirror on our little pond!  Young or old, you too can do it! 

As part of her 'keep fit for sailing' campaign Georgie has also been selected to run in the Edinburgh Marathon in June.  She wants to use this opportunity to raise money for Cancer Research, an issue which is close to her family's heart.  If you would like to donate you can do so on line at www.justgiving.com/georgiehill  or on the club noticeboard.  Any contributions to help her meet her £3000 target will be much appreciated.    

We are delighted that our nomination of John Dowd for the RYA's Lifetime Commitment to sailing award was approved and he was invited to a special presentation dinner with Princess Anne to receive his award..

Just to prove it here's the photo. The club's citation for John was:

We wish to nominate John Dowd for an RYA Community Award for his lifetime commitment to the development of youth sailing in the Yorkshire and Humberside region, as well as for his longstanding service on the Management Committees of Ulley Sailing Club; the National Schools Sailing Association and the RYA Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Committee. John has served on the USC Management Committee continuously for nigh on 20 years. His role as Rear Commodore allowed him to indulge his passion for real ale; as Vice Commodore he helped to found the club's junior section; and, as Commodore from 1996/98, he succeeded in expanding the membership of the club and putting it onto a sustainable financial footing - a position which he has subsequently helped to maintain as a very efficient club Treasurer. He also serves as Treasurer on the Management Committee for the RYA Yorkshire and Humberside Region.

As a teacher in Rotherham, John became active in both the National Schools Sailing Association and, in the mid 1980s, was instrumental in establishing the Yorkshire Schools Travellers series to provide a first step for young people in the region towards national competition. Olympian Paul Goodison, and RYA Junior coach Duncan Truswell, as well as John's own three children, were among the many hundreds of youngsters who subsequently cut their teeth in this series, experiencing venues ranging from open sea to sheltered inland lakes to windswept moorland reservoirs.

John remained the principal organiser for this series for a dozen or more years, achieving regular turnouts of 30 or more boats. Such was his enthusiasm that, for many years, participation in "The Travellers", as well as RYA and NSSA youth events, was considered virtually compulsory for every eligible youngster at Ulley! In recent years, the management of the series has been taken over by the Yorkshire and Humberside Youth Sailing Association, of which he remains an active member, and it continues to flourish.

After retirement, John continued to assist Rotherham school teams and regularly ferried them across the country to national regattas and team races. He currently edits the NSSA's 'School Sailing Matters' and, building on his previous experience of organising the Redcar regatta, took the lead in bringing NSSA sailing back to the north east coast in 2004, this time hosted by the Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club.

John continues to sail quite regularly in club competitions and is a qualified sailing and power boat instructor. It would be particularly appropriate to honour his lifetime commitment to sailing in this his 65 th birthday year.

Many congratulations John !

Jamie's moving up. He beat his fourth place in last year's nationals finishing by third this year at Pwlleli.

Thank you so very much to all those who came to the Tsunami Charity Sail on Saturday at Ulley Sailing Club. The takings on the day - which will all go to the DEC Tsunami Earthquake appeal - amounted to £1481.60. We know of one sponsorship cheque that is still to come, so the final total will be over £1500!  This is a truly magnificent result!  Thank you all so very, very much for justifying our belief that dinghy sailors are a truly caring bunch of people.  It was a really enjoyable day with a great atmosphere that even the declining wind could not spoil. 

We had six visiting teams from Etherow Park SC, Firbeck SC, Huddersfield SC and Rotherham SC.

The "Rotherham Oldies" Team won (although they didn't look that old to some of us).

You can have a look at the pictures of the tsunami sail on this site.

If you are interested you can have a look at a spreadsheet (59kb) of the results and a .pdf file showing plot of Adjusted Average Lap time vs Elapsed Time (190kb). Also you can view the articles that appeared in the Sheffield Star on Monday 7th Feb (181kb) and Saturday 12th Feb (149kb).

This year's 24 hour race a Southport was a windy affair, with gusts up to force 8 on occasions. For the first time the club entered two boats: one a master's team and one a junior's team. As the wind increased throughout the race it soon became apparent that the best tactic was just not to capsize! That said, capsizes were plentiful amongst all the competitors. In all 77 teams took part with the eventual winners being Bolton Sailing Club. After breaking two booms, a tiller, and almost one Commodore (Dave White was run over by a boat), the Ulley Junior's boat finished 36th and the Master's 62nd.

For more information and results visit the 24 Hour race home page (http://24-hour-race.wlyc.org.uk/)
Look at the Southport 2004 photos.

Read the race report here