2022 Looking back on the year & AGM – Victoria Bonham Carter

After a rather patchy couple of years, it’s been lovely for the club to be able to take part in a full programme of sailing on the beautiful Beaulieu River. This year we’ve been very lucky with the winds and out of the scheduled 28 races we only had to cancel one race.

Aside from the sailing, we’ve enjoyed wonderful hospitality from BRSC members in riverside gardens up and down the river for which many thanks. We welcomed The Traveller’s Trophy sailors from Lymington and Keyhaven for our annual Down River Race and a few weeks later, Andrew Duncan guided the scows across the Solent to Newtown Creek for a very successful club rally. To my my mind it was ‘the sail of the year’ as later in the day, the wind came in from the west giving us an exhilarating run along the Solent shore past the Coastguard Cottages and a truly memorable long beat up to Needs Ore.

There was great camaraderie at Ginna Gaynor’s sailing week with perfect sailing conditions for the ‘Bucklers Hard ice cream run’ and frisky winds for our final race day. During the summer holidays June Kirkman and Charlie Bubear organised two very well attended sail training weeks for our Senior and Junior members followed by a great turn out for our Annual Regatta at the end of August.

Then, as the swallows migrated, we too headed to more sheltered waters by way of the Up River Race, (this year won by Camilla and Martin Sellars), to our Autumn base at Rope Factory Field and the much anticipated annual tea party kindly hosted by Maria Stratton. It was here that we were joined by the Phipps family for the presentation of our handsome new trophy, The Phipps Oar, henceforth to be presented to the winner of the Down River Race, awarded this year to Jay Devonshire.

At the end of October, as we put our boats away for the final time, over our post-race tea, we reflected on just what a year it has been. With a new Monarch and three Prime Ministers, we agreed we’d had more turbulence off the water than on. Heartfelt thanks to all our members who work so tirelessly behind the scenes to make it all run smoothly.

We had a very good turnout for our AGM where we began our meeting by remembering with great fondness, those that had ‘crossed the bar’. Births were announced and we welcomed our new members and look forward to seeing them on and around the river next year.

We paid tribute to our special guest, John Claridge, who not only developed our fibre-glass hull mould but has built and looked after our boats for so many years. Mary awarded John ‘Honorary Membership’ for his contribution to the club’s history and we very much hope he will come and race with us next year.

Our Commodore regaled us with wonderful diary entries from our first Commodore, Mary’s grandmother, Pearl Pleydell-Bouverie and I was most amused to hear that her sailing outfit included stockings! Lizzie Anders gave us a vivid and amusing account of our year’s sailing activities which brought back many happy memories of the past year.

Tributes and a great many thanks were also paid to Ginna Gayner and Frank McGinn who have given so much of their time to Junior Sailing and who are now ‘hanging up their life-jackets’. Both Ginna and Frank have grandchildren participating and instructing in the courses and incredibly, Ginna has been involved for 35 years. Over this time they have instructed and inspired hundreds of children in Scows and Oppies up and down the river and we are all going to miss their dedication, patience and sense of fun on the river. Thank you.

Talking of which, last weekend there were still a few Scows and Oppies left in RFF. If you haven’t already, please remove them asap. We are already past the 15th November deadline.

More in depth minutes of the AGM will posted on the website at the end of January.

We have one more celebration this year and that is the BRSC’s 90th Birthday Party on 3rd December at the Palais Des Vaches. It’s a sell out.

Finally, our heartfelt thanks to Bill Vance who has served on the committee for 11 years and for 4 of those years as our Captain. Thank you for everything you have overseen for us.

Bill is handing the baton to June Kirkman who is only the second Lady Captain in the club’s 90 year history. We look forward to being under her Captainship.

Very much looking forward to seeing many of you at our 1930’s ‘birthday celebration’ and to jiving to the sounds of our live band, ‘The Kitchen Social’.

Yours aye,

Victoria Bonham Carter
Captain of Scows