Huntingdon Radio Yacht Club sailing on River Great Ouse

Our normal activities are racing on a Saturday morning every week and during the summer we race on Monday evening.

We also do casual sailing on Wednesday afternoons, but we came up with a plan to take our sport to the public.

While having a post racing beer following our DF95 Twilight series a few weeks ago, Andy Johnson, the club training officer suggested, "Why don’t we have an afternoon sailing on the River Great Ouse from St Ives Quay? 

"We could have a jolly time on the river for our members, and at £0.50p a go, raise some money for our favourite charity, the RNLI." - And so the seed was sewn.

There were lots of yachts on the river. (Image: Huntingdon Radio Yacht Club)

A plan was formulated, members were pressed (they didn’t need much pressing) into joining in, and the following few weeks the cogs in the wheels to set the thing in motion began.

We had to get the ok from the Environment Agency, which they were very happy to help, the St Ives Electric Riverboat Co have a pontoon at river level which we could launch from, and a local river cruiser provided “recovery from weed” services on his tender, (two-way radio was a God send), and he was very busy.

• Recommended Reading: Huntingdon Boat Club report for July and August events

After our normal Saturday mornings racing, our marks were loaded into a car and taken to the local marina. They were loaded into a boat, and along with five skippers and five boats, all were motored upstream to the Quay.

Perimeter marks to keep the cruisers at bay were dropped and a simple upwind/downwind course was laid for any racing that may take place.

The crowds had already gathered on the Quayside and soon we were busy giving instruction, and demonstrations on sailing were given throughout the afternoon, with a few races thrown in for good measure. 

Crowds gathered to watch the yachts in St Ives. (Image: Huntingdon Radio Yacht Club)

With Martin Brooking & Alan “Cookie” Cooke on front of house, Andy Baldock & Andy Johnson being first line, and everyone else either sailing or also passing a controller onto a willing member of the public.

Our website received more than 100 hits yesterday from QR code scans and our RNLI collection box collected £58.96.

I think we all had a great afternoon in the sunshine, and also for two and a half hours we brought some extra smiles to the Quay. We are a busy club generally, but this was great fun for all the members present, and all agreed it was a fantastic way to spend the afternoon.

The general plan for the day was to show the public our sport and hopefully pick up a few members along the way, and we have one new member from the pre-event promotional activity and the next member to join will be club member number 40.

Huntingdon RYC is a member of the MYA (Model Yachting Association). There are over 100 clubs nationally, with more than 2000 members, the country split into regions. We sit within the Eastern District along with 11 other clubs.

We have club racing weekly and there are also regional events, national events and also the World Championship event, this year being held in Australia in September.

We are happy to report one of our members has qualified to represent the UK in Australia.

If you would like to get in touch with us, please do so via our website - www.hryc.co.uk

We would be happy to hear from you and answer any questions you may have.