Rutland Water Camp 2025

Rutland Water Camp 2025

Friday 5th September to Sunday 7th September

Rutland Water is a vast expanse of non tidal water and a jolly good sailing and windsurfing area. It is the biggest man made reservoir in Europe (3000 acres) formed from a damned/flooded valley in beautiful surroundings near Leicestershire (approx 2-3 hours drive from Farnborough area). We sail from Rutland Sailing Club and during club opening times (circa 0800 -1900hrs) have full use of their facilities (showers/loos/wet bar/bar and restaurant etc).

Accommodation

Immediately opposite the sailing club is a small campsite with level ground, water points and chemical loo emptying facilities. Camp site charges are £4 – £12 per tent (depending on size of tent) per night. Campervans and motorhomes are also permitted. Pets are also welcome.

For those not too keen on camping, Rutland SC does offer accommodation in shared bunk rooms (some with ensuite facilities). Alternatively the village/local towns have B&Bs on offer.

Launching Fees

We will be storing our dinghies and launching from Rutland Sailiing Club. They are charging us a rate of £50 for doublehander dinghies and £39 for singlehanders for the period from Friday to Sunday inclusive.

Daysail Planning

A consensus will emerge each day as to the best destination to sail towards. You are welcome to join others doing this or to choose to sail to your own favoured place.

With lots of water space, no wind shadows, usually nice winds and safety boats around it’s a excellent opportunity to master that kite, get out on the wire, or borrow a singlehander to perfect those dry capsizes.

This RYA Dinghy Trail should give a good idea of possible daysail destinations.

Around Rutland Water

The local village has a pub serving good food within easy walking distance, and the town of Oakham is a 15 minute drive away. If there is no wind then walking or cycling (26km circumnavigation of the reservoir) is said to be good and, in the area for shoppers, Oakham is not far away. 

Booking

Booking and joining details will be published nearer the time. Booking will be done through the Cody planning spreadsheet on Google Docs.

Check, Clean & Dry Procedure for Visiting Boats

Rutland SC have biosecurity byelaws in place which they will enforce. Please read the link from the RSC website or http://www.nonnativespecies.org/checkcleandry/index.cfm for full details.  In summary they are worried about invasive waterbourne species cross contamination – particularly from other inland waters.  If you are bringing a boat they will want to know and see that it has been thoroughly washed AND DRIED before allowing on the water.  This will apply to boats, trolleys and trailers, and personal clothing/bouyancy aid etc so if you’re thinking of coming get your kit sorted well in advance.


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Cobnor Training Weekend

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July 2026

Friday arrivals were the usual Cody dribs and drabs arrivals, but even Simon arrived during the daylight, and a pleasant evening was had by all gathered around Anna’s wire mesh fire pit in the warm clear evening chatting and watching the satellites proceed across the night sky. A leisurely morning was spent in the lovely warm Saturday morning sunshine with Steve conducting ‘informal’ training on the field for people setting up new boats, optimising existing rigs or rigging spinnakers never rigged before. We took to the water around 11am and mustered on Cobnor Point to discuss the days training which included sailing efficiently in tidal flows, anchoring off with a tripping line, reefing afloat, a ‘acted out’ demonstration of man over board drills and practicing using the spinnaker (once it was rigged correctly). The day’s training was punctuated by a lunch on the foreshore at Cobnor point with Anna and Mark securing the royal ‘king and queen’ throne of the viewing bench there to dispense their regal declarations to the rebellious throng set out below them. All in all, a great day’s training.

The following day commenced with a session on Day Sail Leading, with Chris volunteering to lead a test day sail and presenting all the planning and briefing to the crews on the field before we went off the sail the plan.


From Chris:

On Sunday morning we had a six-boat fleet of Comets for a short cruise. This was part of the training for new day-sail OODs and was led by me (Chris) under Steve’s watchful tutelage.|

We were afloat just before 11, getting ahead of a fleet (flock, swarm… insert your preferred collective noun here) of Toppers, which were holding a youth race meeting from Cobnor SC. Our first leg was just a short hop from Cobnor to a stop at Itchenor hard. But just because it was short didn’t make it uneventful, with one boat finding themselves up a cul-de-sac the wrong side of the harbour jetties, before we were all able to meet up on the hard. Launching again into strengthening winds, the Cody fleet made its way upwind and uptide through a Sunday morning throng of racing dinghies, motor cruisers and anchored yachts to the ‘Wear’ mark. The fleet made good use of the skills of sailing out of the tide that they had practised the previous day. Turning back towards Cobnor, the fleet landed on Cobnor Point, practising landing on a lee-shore. De-briefing over lunch on the rocky beach, we were also able to watch the Toppers racing, with Debbie’s nephew taking a leading role.

We then spent time reefing afloat, more spinnaker practice before the participants left the point to pack up, An enjoyable and very useful day!

Simon and Chris.