The Cam Sailing Club is a friendly, family club, but with a large racing programme. Although there’s regular racing, many members just sail without racing. The grounds, mostly lawns along the banks of the Cam, are an excellent place to relax with a family on a summer’s day.
On the racing side there’s a wide range of racing from Optimists to Lasers and small cruisers, including a number of open events. Our juniors have won the Cambs Youth Sailing League every year except 1997, when they came second. As you can see from the news items, our members reach a high standard and we often have members competing for regional, national or international titles. Unfortunately, if you want to race large trapeze dinghies, there just isn’t room on the Cam to race such craft.
For cruisers there’s access to the whole of the Great Ouse river system, and for the adventurous, through the Middle Levels to the Nene and beyond, not to mention the Wash and the North Sea. The land being very flat, there’s only one lock after Bottisham Lock before the sea.
It’s one of the best clubs for spectating, whether watching an exciting race or teaching a child in an Optimist. There’s a path and right of way all along the bank from the club to Bottisham Lock and the boats are never that far away. You can always keep a child within sight and hailing distance. On very windy days there’s often good spectator sport, and if the race course includes a gybe on a mark or at a bend in the river, spectators looking for excitement position themselves there to see how the sailors cope. Indeed, a lot can be learned from watching the best sailors.
The family atmosphere and the wonderful grounds mean that there’s a lot of informal socializing. There are also several arranged social events each year. These usually include:
* Spring Get-together (an evening invited talk usually on a sailing or river theme)
* family-fun games evening (May bank holiday weekend)
* children’s sports day
* summer party with a marquee on the club grounds
* barbecue, usually with games or treasure hunt (August bank holiday weekend)
* a formal ‘Laying-up supper’, which also serves an end-of-season prize giving.
There are other social events arranged by members with particular interests, such as for cruiser owners various sorts of events are arranged not necessarily every year, eg:
* a pre-season social and planning meeting
* an informal weekend of family cruising, downstream from the CSC mooring overnight outside riverside inns
* a meal out together in early autumn.
We have regattas or other events to celebrate special occasions, such as the opening of our clubhouse extension in 1998. In 1999, our centenery year, and we had several additional centenary events.
