Dinghy Cruising

Organisers: Steve Reneaux & Melanie Newman

Dinghy Cruises take place on Saturdays usually once a month between April and September

Club Members and visiting sailors are invited to participate.

If you sail any type of boat (dinghy or otherwise) and are interested in a non-stressful and leisurely day's cruising in the Western Solent, with an opportunity to exchange sea-faring tales over a lunch break with like-minded sailors, then come and join in.

To Participate

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Read the Dinghy Cruise Sailing Instructions then complete a DInghy Cruising registration form.

Cruisiers are reminded that they must complete and sign the LTSC Contact Sailing Experience Form and return it to the Sailing Secretary before participating in any CLub event.

Any participant under the age of 18 at the start of the event must complete a LTSC Parental disclaimer form.

About our Cruises

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Cruises take place most months on a Saturday with occasional additional cruises for specials events.

For example, we participate in an annual joint event (usually in July) with Hurst Castle Sailing Club and Keyhaven Yacht Club for a cruise to Totland Bay (IOW) where in addition to the cruise we compete in a tri-club sandcastle building competition

As you can imagine this is a very popular event, with kids (big and small!!) having a great time. In recent years LTSC has been very successful in picking up many of the trophies! Whilst all destinations of our dinghy cruises (and of course return journey) are easily achievable from LTSC within a day, the final decision where to sail is not made until the actual day of the cruise as this will be influenced by weather, state of tide, experience of helms, etc.

A safety boat accompanies all cruises and occasionally we are joined by LTSC members with their yachts or powerboats, giving the opportunity for dinghy crews to swap over at some stage during the day and experience sailing in a different type of boat. We welcome both LTSC members and non-members to our cruises, particularly those members of the UKWA, Wanderer COA and Laser Stratos Class Owners Association.

All participants of the dinghy cruises are requested to be ready changed and have their dinghies rigged by 0930. A briefing is held in the Club's Solent Room at 0930 and the boats launched immediately afterwards. Our return to LTSC is usually around 1600 hours.

It is recommended that all participants bring their own refreshments as the destination of the day will not necessarily have lunch facilities available. Also, whilst we endeavour to ensure that our destination will have toilet facilities, this cannot always be guaranteed!

Our dinghy cruise destinations are usually within a distance of about 8nm from Lymington and can be on the mainland or the Isle of Wight.

On the mainland to the west we have Hurst Spit and Castle at the entrance to Keyhaven River and Keyhaven itself, which is a small fishing/sailing port about 3 miles from Lymington. The approach from Hurst Spit takes you into a fairly narrow and winding river channel down to the harbour. This can make quite an interesting challenge if the wind happens to be blowing in the 'wrong' direction and we have to beat up or down the river!

To the east we have the picturesque Beaulieu River and just beyond the entrance, Lepe Country Park which is about 7nm from Lymington. This makes a fascinating lunch stop as in addition to the restaurant and beach there are several information boards with descriptions and photographs of the WWII Mulberry Harbour which was constructed near Lepe in the period leading up to D-Day.

On the Isle of Wight we have a number of popular beach destinations to the west Alum Bay (6nm), Totland Bay (5nm)and Colwell Bay (4nm) and to the east Thornes Bay (6nm)and Gurnard Bay (7nm). There is the small attractive town of Yarmouth which is very popular with summer visitors and has a variety of pubs, cafes and shops, and Newtown River (5nm) which is a charming little estuary with a nature reserve, home to a variety of waders and other wildfowl. If the weather is suitable we may take the opportunity to have a beach barbecue during our lunch stop.

For further details or information on Dinghy Cruising please contact the Sailing Secretary via the office at LTSC.