Bewl Water

Mike (Over Easy) Baker

The late May Bank Holiday at Bewl Water in Kent used to be pretty good; but that was in the days when we could camp on site and sail virtually the whole three days. Since the camping facility was severely constrained by Southern Water and camping limitations for unregistered camp sites the event has lost much of its appeal.

The water and the sailing is as good as ever but short of sleeping in the car overnight, as Richard does, there's little choice of comfortable, affordable accommodation in the area.

One day sail now seems to be the way forward; and so it was that Lyn and I towed Over Easy down to Bewl on Sunday morning where we were joined by Richard Cannon with ST368 and Aquarius new comers Regina Tam and Richard Hart.

Keith and Madeline Hatton had arrived a few minutes earlier and between us we soon had Over Easy off her road trailer, rigged and ready to launch.

There was only normal club racing on Sunday but Keith and I had a good day's sailing three sail reaching backwards and forwards across Bewl Water. If only sailing at Aquarius came anywhere near this I would be in my seventh heaven.

After lunch Richard's boat was out a long time and Keith and I commented about his new crews 'capacity' if you know what I mean? Interestingly we did heard later that ST368 did have to make an unscheduled comfort stop somewhere on the other side of the lake.

We came off the water late in the afternoon, pretty exhausted, but very happy. A dinner stop at 'The Grasshopper' outside Westerham on the way home completed a great day. I don't know what happened on Monday, other than a whole raft of people went down from Aquarius, so again ….. Over to you again Richard?

Richard Cannon

The weather forecast for Sunday and Monday was terrible, wet and windy, but fortunately it didn’t materialise where we were.

On Sunday prospective members Regina Tam and Richard Hart came out with all three of us in Signet 368. They subsequently joined Aquarius.

At first the 10knt wind was ideal for taking novices out but as we started to go up Bewl Straight the wind was increasing so we came in for lunch.

After lunch we sailed to the extremeties of the sailing area and when we reached the end of Bewl Straight the club looked to be in a mist; they were having torrential rain that never reached us, but we were a couple of miles away!!

Regina and Richard H went from no sailing experience to being competent at tacking in winds we seldom get on the river in 5 hours of sailing.

On Monday Richard C was joined by Rodger Wheeler with his Bosun, Liz Archer, Jane Gibson and Brian Clements.

Sailing was the Bewl Spring Regatta with handicap racing for the Bewl Champions (10 entries) in one start and Allcomers (25 entries) in a second start. The course was a simple trapezoid.

Again conditions were ideal with a 8 to 12 knt wind. New member Jane crewed for Richard C but as conditions were so good for training Richard handed the helm to Jane on the first run for some practice. Richard then took over for just the beat leg on each lap. On one run Richard flew the spinnaker and one reach Jane was even planning.

In the afternoon there were 2 races back to back. Richard started and helmed the beat to the first mark in each race but then left the race for Jane to get practice at tacking. She actually found it easier racing where she just had to follow instructions whereas with tacking she had to think about what she was doing.

Although there was a low turn out the sailing couldn’t have been better. It shows that you shouldn’t be put off by a forecast of bad weather.