14 boats, including 6 visitor, took part in the Albacore open meeting on Sunday 14th April in challenging conditions. After three closely fought races Neville Herbert and Mark Fowler took overall first place followed by Mike McNamara crewed by Flip Foulds in second place. Locals John Woffinden and Erica Hunter took third place.

Full results

Maidenhead had the beginnings of its first Sailing Club in 1965, when a group of enthusiasts got together to build small racing dinghies that used the new self - build “stitch and glue” manufacturing technique. Their choice of dinghy was the “Mermaid”, which was a 1961 design entry in a “Stanley Tools” competition, and subsequently included in “Do It Yourself” magazine (a Link House Publication) in 1963.

Weed Management

105 litres of blue dye have recently been deployed into the lake as part of 2013 fight against pondweed to give a concentration of 1 part dye to 5.75 x 10^6 water (this concentration should deter weed growth below about half a metre from the surface). We hope that the increased depth of water this year will mean we don’t need to harrow even our most vulnerable shallow regions. If anyone has access to a sensitive densitometer able to measure such turbidity would they please let Alan Dibble know.

The MSC sailing instructions have been updated to reflect the new racing rules of sailing for 2013 – 2016 that come into effect for club racing at Maidenhead on Sunday 6 January 2013 as well as as a couple of minor changes relating to Pursuit races.  The new version is available on the Racing and Results page or in the Downloads section.

We now have one Topper (Elite)  converted to centre main and available for hire which is proving to be a big hit.

At Upper Thames Sailing Club

Fast moving water, force 4-5 with scary gusts, narrow river not to mention pleasure cruises, rowers and barges.

The training dates for 2012 have now been published.  This year's courses include:

• Learn to sail for Adults and Juniors
• Race training
• Power boat training
• Instructor training

Details here

First we must say that SOAP stands for Sailing Old Age Pensioners and this group of members meet at the Club every Thursday afternoon throughout the year as a social gathering for those of us who have Thursday afternoons free.  Although the group (there are no membership cards or agenda) is mainly made up of those of us who take our pensions, any club member who finds that they are free on Thursday afternoon are made welcome.  The main aim is to chat, and to drink tea!

This season the Thursday evening and 1st Sunday of the month handicap races have two sets of results.

The first set are the standard class based handicap, the second set of results are adjusted with a personal handicap being applied to the helm.  If you do well in a race, your handicap will be adjusted down, likewise if you do badly then your handicap is adjusted the other way.

Personal Handicap results are now included on the racing and results page.

On the windy but clear day following the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, nine visitors joined 3 locals for the second Maidenhead Sailing Club’s Comet Open. This year in line with the Taplow Lake Open, that it replaced, the event was held in early May (well close to it) and there was no sign of the weed that forced a rescheduling of the race last year.