Dinghy Racing

Dinghy Racing

The Club has a number of keen racers within its membership and promotes dinghy racing activities through a number of events:

10 Hour Relay Race – Frensham Pond Sailing Club

This event is held during a summer day at Frensham Pond Sailing Club. The race is open to teams racing the Club boats.

Match Racing – Frensham Pond Sailing Club

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We normally try to hold two series of match races, one in the spring or early summer at or near the end of the Level 1+2 course and one in the late summer after our summer camp. Both of these series use the Club boats on Frensham pond usually on a weekday evening and are open to all members. The racing is competitive, but not too serious and is an ideal introduction to club racing. Each series usually culminates in a race afternoon held at the weekend usually coinciding with a social event (Summer Social in July and the Late Summer Social in September). The races are usually held on an individual helm basis and trophies are awarded for best helm and best novice helm.

Summer Camp Regatta

A highlight of the Clubs annual camp is the Regatta, usually held sometime during the middle weekend. The day consists of races in a number of different categories. There is a handicap race open to all and a ladies helm race as well as races for the coveted ‘GP’ and ‘mirror’ trophies.

Bart’s Bash

Bart’s Bash is a charity event to raise funds the help transform the lives of young people through sailing. We are looking to put teams into the next race in the Autumn.

Winter Series – Frensham Pond Sailing Club

The club Comet Trios are available to Dinghy Section members and there are handicap series on both Saturday and Sunday.

Comet Trio Nationals

The club boats can be taken to any Comet Trio Open Meeting and Nationals. Any Comet Trio rigged as our boats are, with the sails from the standard sailmakers and just as they are can be taken to any Comet Trio event and it’s in class. That also means that you can race our Comet Trios in any handicap race as well, and it’s within class and ready to go.

Pictures of our boats at the Comet Trio Nationals in 2015 with thanks to Mike Rice.

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Round Isle of Sheppey Race Notes

A good sail is the longest dinghy race in Europe, and the notes for the race will help future explorers enter this race without making the mistakes that we made on our first year.

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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.