Sunshine, and wind between 16-18kt provided a splendid day’s racing for the coveted trophy, and a large entry across all our fleets was in evidence.
It was a very successful event. Well planned, and well executed with excellent support from the team out on the water. Three different race courses were featured to try and level out any boat advantage on a particular type of course, and this is where the fun began, because it involved the sailors actually reading the sailing instructions where beautiful clear diagrams could be found, along with the letter that would be displayed on the committee boat to signal the course. To emphasise the point, there was note on the website home page reminding sailors to read the SIs.
The first race was sailed on a reverse P, and as usual the fast fleet was away and flew up the 900m beat, and then all bar 2 boats sailed a windward leeward course so scored DSQ. At least we then knew who had not read the SIs!
Race 2 was sailed on a trapezoid, and race 3 on a windward leeward.
Although blowing well, the wind did shift around a lot, and so there were pitfalls and gains aplenty. In the end consistency paid and the Solo of Chris Brown won scoring 4,4,3. The top three was completed by 2 more Solos.
Chris Clarke was our RO and as well as all the pre event planning he carried out, he did a great job coordinating the support team, we owe him a big thank you.
Report by Nigel Denchfield. Photos Robbie McDonald
On Monday morning there was a detailed safety briefing to remind everyone of the social distancing and other guidelines and to check everyone had a face mask to wear inside the building. Your special correspondent was out in the media boat to capture photos and videos as the week progresses.
Then it was on to the main event: the activities. Monday morning saw the ‘Tour de Grafham’. Like the cycling Tour de France, this was made up of stages, sailed from one buoy to the next on the route. The winner of the first stage from X to J had to start the second stage last, and the last person started first, with everyone in between in reverse order. This carried on through all the stages, until the final stage from Rose to X. Directeur Sportif Ben Giles ensured that everyone got underway at the right time in each stage.
After lunch it was time for the first of the world-famous Squidditch (© Matt French Enterprises Inc.) matches of the week. Squidditch is based on Quidditch (of Harry Potter fame) but is much better as it takes place on water not in the air. Each team of 5 boats had to try to get the squaffle through their goal, but no-one is allowed to hold the squaffle for more that 5 seconds before passing it to another team member. It is very challenging and a very good test of boat handling and manouevering skills and all did extremely well. The match was won by the Elliegiraffarats. 
Tuesday morning’s main event was The Crystal Maze. It was unfortunate that this was lost on the group, none of whom had ever watched the TV show, but Matt gamely ploughed on anyway. The lake was divided into four zones: Arid, Amazon, Arctic and Aztec. Within each zone at least one team member had to visit each buoy and collect the letters that were stuck on them. Then it was a matter of assembling all the collected letters to make four words to answer the clues. The wind was extremely light, meaning only three zones were completed before lunch and several boats had to be towed back from the far side of the lake. Click to see a demonstration by Adele of 
After lunch the wind was looking more promising and the final zone was quickly completed. After a break for squash and cakes it was time for the second Squidditch match of the week, but this time with a difference. No boats this time but paddleboards, without paddles so it was necessary to either lie or kneel on the board to move forwards (or backwards). This was even more challenging (and exhausting) than the sailing version.and everyone came ashore exhausted. Mandy and Ben were happy to be team leaders and get a chance to cool down from the extreme heat in the water. 
After lunch there was enough wind to go sailing, and Team Racing was the order of the day. Matt and Mandy explained some of the tactics to use to make sure your team wins, as it’s not just about coming first, you have to try to help your slower team members. As we were short of time, squash and cakes was served on the water and everyone showed great seamanship skills by coming alongside the RIBs to collect and return their cups of squash. After four races, the teams were again tied, so the day’s winners came down to the last race, and it was won by the Elliegiraffarats.
On Thursday, again the coaches had a fiendish set of challenges planned, but this was to no avail as there were thunderstorms around us all morning. Instead some socially distanced theory games were played, including Knot Bingo, Taming the Timeline and a flag quiz. Everyone did really well and by the end all could tie a bowline. By 3 o’clock the storms had finally passed, but it was too windy for the planned windsurfing activity. Instead the boats were set to reaching between buoys X and C, and then having to go between or around or in a complete circle around the RIBs.
Friday dawned with much better weather and so we were very glad to be able to run the traditional end-of-camp regatta. This consisted of three races, started and finished using proper flags, sound signals and timings to work out the overall results. The racing was incredibly close, with the top three places taken by Dom, Adele and Josh. After lunch the wind was just right for windsurfing, so everyone had a chance to have a go. Then it was time for the final prize-giving, packing up and looking forward to next year.
In our group were Lucy and Craig managing their RS200 rather well and also practising a bit of swimming..well, I understand Craig was whilst Lucy hung onto the boat! I think she was looking for a secret stash of cake! Elinor was also flying around in her Topper and Bob had rather a harsh start in the D-Zero as the wind was a bit lively. However, he and I both stayed upright. We both had a couple of dodgy moments and independently thought we must stay up as we didn’t want to embarrass our daughter!
In Matt’s group were Jane, Steve, Neal, Gary and Chris. They did the same exercises but a little further over from us. I think they also did some start practice.
The younger members were absolutely thrilled to be back together with their friends and out on the water again. They also loved their Team Grafham hoodies – many thanks to Angus Jackson for organising them.
We were also thrilled to be able to announce that GWSC is now an RYA British Youth Sailing Recognised Club. Many thanks to Mandy and Matt for this great achievement.
Male visitors and club members are probably unaware of what the ladies’ changing room in the clubhouse is like. Firstly it is much smaller, as the whole clubhouse width area at the back of the gents does not exist in the ladies, who have only the area excluding this section. Secondly it is in a worse state of repair. Thanks to club member Barrie Holden, the walls in the gents have been repaired and painted and many of the benches too. As with the mens’, the ladies showers and toilets were upgraded a few years ago, but the changing area is in need of attention.
So, while the clubhouse is closed, a group of sociable sailors and other volunteers are coming together to carry out some much needed repairs and maintenance of this forgotten area. This group are determined to make the ladies’ changing room a destination to be proud of and to make the men jealous of.
On Sunday Ray did a fantastic job positioning, glueing and screwing the battens in place. On Monday, Jane (having recovered from her tooth extraction) arrived to attack the remaining blue mats from the Gents’ with the pressure washer and antibacterial wash.
They are now all gleaming and ready to be put back in place. Barrie arrived armed with his power screwdriver and screwed all the coat hooks back on in the ladies’. It is now starting to look like a changing room again. I painted another coat of paint on the iron gate at the back of the ladies, which is now a fetching shade of lilac to match the battens.The final leg is now in sight.
The materials to allow us to replace the overhead racks were delivered early this morning. So when Chris and Lynn arrived for the afternoon shift, I had lots of two-person jobs lined up for them. Firstly they moved all the racks and mats that had been stored in the cafe back upstairs, then they moved all the tables and chairs into the centre of the cafe ready for it to reopen for a take-away service on Saturday. There will be more information about this on the website home page.
A lot has happened in the last two days. In the ladies, Sarah has powered through two more coats of floor paint (with a little help from me) and is finishing off the final coat as I write.
This was floor painting weekend. Sarah was missing painting now that the gents’ was finished so very kindly offered to help with the ladies’. I scraped and scrubbed ingrained mud, chewing gum and other unrecognisable items under the benches. Then it was a matter of washing down all the floor area with soapy water, rinsing with multiple buckets of clean water, washing down on hands and knees with sugar soap and then finally rinsing again to get the whole of the remaining floor area ready for the first coat of paint.
Sarah put in two shifts of floor painting, so that by Sunday evening the whole floor is now grey instead of green. The photos show the final obliteration of the green floor tiles. Tomorrow we will start on the second coat of floor paint. It needs careful planning to work around to the exit and not get stuck, or leave belongings, inside wet paint. Locking the gate at the top of the cafe stairs and switching off the lights was a bit of an issue but fortunately there are multiple ways in and out of the area.
Today marked a major milestone – Barrie has finished the benches in the gents. This has been a huge undertaking spanning three years, and all users of the gents changing room will benefit from Barrie’s dedication and hard work. There is a small amount of white wall painting still to do, so if anyone can volunteer for that, it would be fantastic to be able to say the project is complete!
Chris and Lynn arrived for yet another afternoon session and achieved loads. Lynn finished painting the bench slats, so all the benches are now complete. Chris finished off a bit of lilac painting on the free-standing bench and then went down to the cafe, aka storage area to work on the overhead racks. He washed them all down, sanded the brackets and bracket mountings and painted these white. Then he and Lynn gave the same treatment to the two very long racks which are still upstairs as they are too big to remove from the room without dismantling. This means that the floor is now clear for the rest of it to be painted.
Sarah finished ‘her’ bench and made a start on the second coat of the last unfinished one. Dave Williams took over from her to complete the second coat. Meanwhile I sugar soaped and rinsed the floor in the first bay. This is now drying ready for the first coat of floor paint to go down tomorrow.
Sarah is determined to finish ‘her’ bench tomorrow, while Barrie was doing the first coat on the other one. In the ladies, Ann put in another excellent morning’s work painting between the slats and on the legs, which Chris finished off in the afternoon (except one leg which inexplicably got missed). Meanwhile I mopped the floor in the first bay twice to start getting ready to paint it. Then I cut pieces of off-cut vinyl to size to fill the gaps where there are missing tiles and stuck them down, getting my fingers thoroughly coated in Evo-stick. This reminded me of craft activities when I was a child, I remember peeling dried Evo-stick off my fingers after Blue Peter-like sessions (probably in the Brownies). I’m sure they don’t allow children to get covered in Evo-stick these days! If anyone has any spare bits of vinyl flooring lying around that they could donate, please let me know – we don’t have enough to fill all the gaps in the floor tiles.
R day is here at last! No not the reproduction rate of the virus, but Reopening Day. Several of our stalwart volunteers arrived to get their reward on the water, while Lynn spent the morning while Chris was sailing, sugar soaping and rinsing all the ladies’ benches. These are now ready for painting tomorrow, when Ann, having enjoyed her sail today, will be back to paint. Barrie arrived with all the new supplies and he and Sarah got back to bench painting.
Barrie was as usual hard at work in the men’s’ changing room painting benches and was joined by Colin. Colin’s wife and daughter Sue and Abigail volunteered to help out in the ladies’. So Sue painted a second coat on the battens (they are a very pretty colour now) and got round two-thirds of the room before Abigail decided it was lunch time.
Meanwhile, Sarah and Jason arrived to take over the afternoon shift in the men’s and Iris and Manuel arrived to tackle the ladies. Iris finished the battens, including painting two coats on the free-standing bench, so these are now ready to have the coat hooks reapplied. Manuel, equipped with electric sander, sanded down the benches in the first bay. We have decided these will have to be repainted for now, rather than being boxed in (that may come later). So the next job, for tomorrow’s volunteers, is to wash the first bay’s benches down ready for repainting and carry on sanding round the rest of the room. Outside, work continued on getting the grounds ready for reopening on Tuesday. Signage was erected, grass was strimmed and mowed. There is more information on all of this on the 
We were so busy getting ready for the club reopening that there are no photos of today’s work, so I am including one of the finished steps from the changing room to cafe which I did yesterday. Jane and Ann arrived and got down to painting. Jane painted the iron gate at the top of the stairs to the cafe a pale grey colour which should be easier to see against the white wall behind. She then painted the final bit of black skirting board at the base of the central pillar. Ann painted the first coat onto the battens all round the walls that hold the hundreds of coat hooks above the benches. There will be one more coat needed, which will be done over the next few days. Then the next job is sanding down the benches around the walls ready for painting. Meanwhile Barrie was joined in the gents’ again by Sarah this morning and this afternoon David arrived to help him.
Ray came to finish off the filling of holes in the walls and I painted white edges on the steps to make them visible. Because the surface is uneven, it was difficult to get perfectly straight edges. In the afternoon, Chris and Lynn arrived and finished the painting of the walls. Meanwhile, Barrie’s plea for help in the gents’ was answered as Sarah arrived to help him with painting the benches. More people are lined up to help in the next couple of days, but any offers of assistance will be very gratefully received.
Ray arrived nice and early to do part one of filling the large holes in the walls under the window. He will be back for part two tomorrow so we will then be able to finish painting the walls. Jane then applied the second coat of floor paint to the stairs between the changing rooms and cafe. These are now finished apart from contrasting marking for the tread edges. We now have hopefully got all the paint we need to finish the job over the next couple of days. Barrie was back in the gents’ after a day off yesterday, to start painting the six free-standing benches. He is putting out a plea for volunteers to help him with this, the final task to complete the refurb of the gents’ changing. If you would be happy to spend a socially distanced morning or afternoon painting then please do get in touch: hilary@htalbot.com.
The start of week two and stalwart volunteer Ann arrived to finish painting the bench that Fiona had worked on yesterday. By now we had almost run out of white paint so thought she wouldn’t have enough work to keep her busy. In the end it took much more time, but slightly less paint, than expected. By the time Chris and Lynn arrived for the afternoon turn, Ann was out of energy but not out of paint or bench. So Lynn took over from a rather weary Ann and managed to finish the paint and the bench simultaneously.
I attacked the cafe-changing room steps again, this time with sugar soap followed by three buckets-full of clean water so it would be ready for painting. There wasn’t much left of the sponge by the end. The steps had dried just in time for Chris to start painting them. They should then dry overnight so that a second coat can be applied tomorrow. Meanwhile more paint has been ordered so we can carry on working.
Then Fiona painted the top part of the bench, while Nigel painted the long back wall and most of the end wall. This just leaves a second coat on the bench, plus the last bit of the end wall and the two outside walls to paint – these need some repair to the concrete first before they can be painted. The whole room is looking so much brighter and cleaner already.
Today Iris (who is responsible for this whole project starting off) and Manuel arrived to carry out double-handed working. First they managed to turn the free-standing bench, that had been worked on by Ann and Elinor previously, onto its side so the underneath could be worked on and Iris washed it down with sugar soap ready for painting. Between them they then managed to paint about one third of the wall area in white paint. Already the whole room looks much brighter. They were here all day as they kept spotting another bit of painting they could do before they went. They are also volunteering to come back next weekend.
Elinor arrived to pick up where Ann left off yesterday. She washed down the bench Ann had sanded, first with sugar soap and then with water.This is now ready for painting. Afterwards she gave her Topper a bit of TLC. Elinor said we should make clear that a major perk of volunteering inside the clubhouse is that you can use the toilets (they are being disinfected every night). So please step up!
Gary then agreed to undertake one of the most unenviable tasks so far:cleaning the steps from the changing rooms to the cafe. These were encrusted with many years of mud and it took him seven passes with water and scrubbing to get them clean. The plan is to wash with sugar soap then repaint the steps with floor paint and then apply hazard tape to the edges so they are safe.
Four days in and we have made huge progress. The preparation is almost finished and we are nearly ready to start painting. Ann worked on her own for more than four hours today! She had brought her power sander with her and sanded down the one free-standing bench in the middle of the area. This was a massive job and a lot of it had to be done by hand as there was so much debris between and behind the bench slats. Hopefully tomorrow’s volunteer will be able to give it one more going over and a wash down so it is ready for painting. The paint and painting equipment has been ordered and will arrive tomorrow.
Ros and Ann again spent the whole morning at the club (huge thanks). All the blue mats are now sparkling, having been scrubbed with anti-bacterial solution and are stored in the cafe area until they can be reinstated. The remainder of the coat hooks have been removed and stored for replacing once the painting is complete. All the battens supporting the coat hooks have been sanded down ready for repainting and a good proportion of the walls washed down with sugar soap ready for repainting. Barrie was also back onsite doing more work on the mens’ benches. Next steps are to finish washing the walls and to prepare the iron gates for repainting.
