Rallies
The club's Cruiser Section organises many rallies during the course of each season with the principal objective of bringing members of the club together at various destinations around the Solent and beyond over weekends and Bank Holidays.
Popular destinations include Chichester Harbour, Bembridge, Cowes, the Hamble River, Beaulieu River, Yarmouth and Lymington all within easy reach from Portchester and suitable for a one or two night stay. The usual format for a rally is that each cruiser arrives independently at the destination where sufficient berths have been pre-booked by our Rally Coordinators. A late afternoon pontoon drinks party normally brings everyone together followed by either a group BBQ or dinner at a local sailing club or restaurant, also pre-arranged by the Rally Coordinators. All you need to do is just sail to the destination with your crew - and enjoy!
At a couple of destinations (usually Island Harbour and Bucklers Hard) there will often be family games and competitions the make your own model boat competition/race being one of the more popular as it enables attendees (adults and children) to test their ingenuity and skills in creating a 'boat' out of cans, bottles, and other scraps of materials foraged locally. Or you might like to try your hand at the 'blindfold rowing' competition!
A long distance rally usually takes place around June when cruisers will sail in company to a more distant destination such as the West Country or Channel Islands. This enables skippers with less experience to test their passage planning and sailing capabilities with the comfort of knowing that other more experienced skippers are nearby although crews will naturally celebrate their arrival in the time honoured fashion!
In addition, there are usually a couple of day rallies such as a visit to the Royal Victoria Yacht Club at Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight for a delicious Sunday lunch. An annual event is the ever popular Vectis Rally to Priory Bay near Seaview in company with dinghy crews who sail across the Solent with the support of the club safety boats for a BBQ on the beach.
The programme of rallies can be viewed on the club Events calendar where links to each event will take you to the booking system which operates on a first come, first served basis as there are sometimes limits on numbers.