Onwards and upwards at Pwllheli Sailing Club

The recent developments at the famous Welsh club have attracted a host of major sailing events to North Wales in 2001, Gerald New reports

Tucked away in North Wales, Pwllheli SC has long been a favourite dinghy championship venue. Originally a small and unpretentious holiday resort, it was brought to prominence by the arrival of the railway and - more importantly for the dinghy associations - a Butlins holiday camp! It was this facility that made it attractive to the dinghy classes of the 60's and 70's, who were experiencing huge growth in numbers at their Championships and needed accommodation that the traditional venues found difficult to provide.



The club had existed for many years in a wooden hut at the harbour entrance. It moved in 1957 to a purpose built clubhouse next to the prominent Gimblet Rock, on the south side of the harbour overlooking Tremadoc Bay. From here it held many National and European dinghy championships including the Optimist Worlds.

When the four hundred berth marina was developed in 1994, the center of activity moved to the north side of the harbour and Pwllheli SC soon discovered that this was where it also needed to be. The Club eventually received a £20,000 grant from the Welsh Office to provide temporary club room facilities at the marina administration building, but the lease included a requirement for them to have their own clubhouse within five years.

Alan Jones, the Commodore during the 1995/96 period, recalled that the expansion of the club to its present splendid building had depended on the enthusiasm of the members - and no shortage of luck with their grant applications. This perhaps glosses over the amount of midnight oil that must have been burnt in preparing the vast amount of paperwork that these grant applications require, and the attendance at many committee meetings.

Welsh Yachting picked Pwllheli as a National Events Centre and as a possible location for the sailing regatta if Manchester acquired the Olympic Games. This helped them to obtain a Lottery award of £368,000. It was some £150,000 short of the estimated building cost, as no bar or galley facilities were considered to be required by the Sports Council for Wales!

Just at this point, another stroke of luck came in the form of the Welsh Water Authority - who needed space for a new sewage plant and the old clubhouse just happened to be in the right place. So it was sold to them for £70,000. The District Council then discovered, at just the right moment, that there was some spare grant money available from a European source, and a quick application secured another £100,000 - which neatly covered the basic building costs without the need of a loan or overdraft.

Membership had been climbing rapidly from about 200 in the days of the original hut, and was now approaching a thousand. That meant the club finally had a decent income they could apply to rescue boats, engines and items such as the large marquee to provide extra entertainment and eating space during the big events.

The new clubhouse was opened in 1996 and work has continued to add to the facilities. The dinghy parks are able to accommodate hundreds of boats and have hardstanding with security fences. Car parking is also available adjacent to the club. With launching available into a protected bay from flat sandy beaches, the club is a favourite with the major dinghy classes, as the recent RS multi-class Championship demonstrates. This may all be a far cry from the days of the Merlin Rockets in 1970 - when a record fleet of 227 boats were kept among the sand dunes and the local Butlins provided the major accommodation - but the excellent sailing waters now have equivalent shore facilities. The club is still negotiating for the land that all these facilities stand on, and plans are in place for improvements in the shower and galley arrangements.

With all this national level dinghy activity, it is perhaps ironic that in terms of its own members, the club is now almost entirely big boat based. The early dinghy owners have moved on, and no one is coming in to replace them. But the club has seen the danger and put in place plans to correct this by purchasing Wayfarers and Toppers to train local youngsters in an attempt to revive the dinghy sailing. Also, in conjunction with the local college, the club runs training courses for rescue, VHF radio use, first aid and race management. This has the added benefit of more hands for the manning of rescue and committee boats during the championship events, which are still provided from within the membership on a voluntary basis.

The present Commodore, Geraint "Jerry" Williams, presides over a club that has demonstrated remarkable growth and willingness to take on events that benefit not just sailing, but also the local area. In the 2001 season the Pwllheli club has an ambitious program which will see the whole of July and August taken up with major championship events - culminating in the One Ton Cup in September.