Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Isle of Wight

The Royal Victoria Yacht Club is a friendly family Club, with a very large and active Cadet Section, focussing mainly on competitive optimist and laser 4.7 development. There is also a very large squib fleet, from which about 20 boats race annually at Cowes week. As a visiting sailor you are likely to receive a warm welcome from all clubbers, and if racing you would be well informed of club practice or rules to obide by.

The Isle of Wight is the small blob at the bottom of the UK, and is located to the south of Portmouth.
The Royal Victoria is located on the northern coast of the Isle of Wight, and at the entrance to Wooton Creek (to the right of the river Medina, when looking at a map, and to the left of Ryde). It is easy to find, as it is next door to the Fishbourne to Portsmouth car ferry terminal. To find out where it is follow the route of the car ferry on a map, and the club is in Fishbourne, where the car ferry stops.

There is a lot of organised fleet racing within the clubs programme, with the racing season running from early April up until the last race (normally new years day-tis a cold one!) Racing mainly takes place on a Sunday, but in the summer months you will also see boats out on tuesday, thursday, fridays and some saturdays.

The main problem at the club is the tides, which allow sailing only three hours either side of high water. There are rocks to the west, a shingle bank to the right, and of course mud in the creek mouth. For this reason week day racing and training usually has to be on a 2 week roto due to a lack of water.

The club also put on many land based functional events, to attract those whose main interest is not what happends on the water. In the past these have include french nights, salsa dancing, kareoke for the kids, and so forth.

As a member, or even a prospective member the evening to go down and see the club and get to know everybody is a Friday night. This is due to the fact that it is a cadet night, and theory seesions or an evening of sailing will usually be on. This therfore means there will be a lot of people around who are willing to talk to you, or answer any questions you may have. These evenings normally start at 7-30, but will start earlier in the event that cadets are out on the water.