On Friday 18 August 15 members of Oxted Offshore Sailing Club visited the Dover Coastguard Operations Centre. We were given an incredibly interesting insight to the work undertaken at Dover, not just in co-ordinating search and rescue services for vessels in trouble but also in monitoring our coastline and some 170 commercial vessels that enter or pass through in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world every day.
Category Archives: Past Events
Spring Rally 2017 and Rose Bowl Challenge
by Fran Taylor on Spirit
Four yachts and 17 club members joined the Oxted Offshore Spring Rally to Poole over the weekend of Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 April. The weather was kind with plenty of sunshine and no rain, but fickle winds of just F2 or F3 set the scene for an interesting Rose Bowl Challenge!
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Graham Smith
2017 Annual Dinner speaker – Graham Smith
Graham Smith was introduced to Oxted Offshore as an accomplished author and stepfather to the Commodore’s wife, Sharon.
After serving in the RAF in the 1950s Graham embarked on a long and varied career in Customs and Excise, beginning in South Wales where he was born. His job took him all over the country to distilleries, breweries and ports, and eventually to Essex where he now lives.
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Oxted Offshore Annual Dinner – 1 April 2017
This years Annual Dinner took place at Tandridge Golf Club (with grateful thanks to Bob Perry) on Saturday 1 April and was attended by 40 members and guests. A great time was had by all and many thanks go to Richard and Sharon for all their hard work in putting the evening together.
Southern Ionian Islands Cruise – early July
Bob Perry is organising a cruise around the Southern Ionian Islands in Greece at the beginning of July for one week. Dates are still to be fixed, but departure date will be sometime around 3 July.
If anybody would like to join in Bob can organise a bigger yacht or a second charter, depending on numbers.
Please contact Bob directly or via the comment box below for more details and to register your interest.
Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre, Dover – Friday 18 August
This special tour of the Dover Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre will commence at 14:00 with rendezvous in the Centre’s car park at 13:45. We will be hosted by Tony Evans, Maritime Operations Specialist, and will see the Operations Room, Rescue Coordination Centre, Area Control and Channel VTS Radar Coverage plus special surveillance. All of this is, however, dependent on any emergency or crisis management at the time of visiting!
Please join us for lunch beforehand at The Coastguard, an unpretentious waterside pub at St Margaret’s Bay beneath the White Cliffs with a British menu based on local produce. Britain’s nearest pub to France, The Coastguard was listed No 4 in The Times newspaper’s Top 20 Coastal Pubs. The table is booked for 12 noon, giving us time for a leisurely lunch before the 10 minute drive back to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre.
The Coastguard
The Bay
St Margarets Bay
Dover, Kent CT15 6DY
Dover Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre
HM Coastguard
Langdon Battery, Swingate
Dover, Kent CT15 5NA
Göcek Gulf Cruise – Turkey Sept 2017
Plans are now firmly in place for a week long cruise exploring the Göcek Gulf commencing September 16th 2017. It’s an interesting area and Rhodes is only 25 miles away.
Eight members of Oxted Offshore have confirmed interest and plan to team up on a Fountaine Pajot Lipari 41 catamaran however this could be altered should more members wish to join.
Itinerary for the cruise to be agreed:
Please contact the club if this is of interest to you.
“Points Make Prizes” Rally – 7 & 8 October 2017
Tides and weather can be problematic in the Solent in October so this year’s autumn rally is being designed to make all the options possible!
On Saturday 7 October participating vessels will be asked to score points by visiting navigation buoys and yellow racing marks within an alloted time. Some carry more points than others, so it’s all about strategy! The vessel with the most points at the end of the day wins a prize.
2017 Freezer Rally – Thursday 7 December
This year’s freezer rally and Christmas Lunch at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes has been booked for Thursday 7 December.
More details including menu choices will be distributed nearer the time.
Croatia Rally – September 2016
Twenty one members of Oxted Offshore set off from Trogir on Saturday 3rd of September 2016 on five sailing vessels Fado, Pepito, Julie, Ivolga and a large catamaran Chardonnay. Many of the group had been in Croatia a few days earlier so they could spend time exploring the historic sights of Split and Trogir and become acclimatised to the 31 degrees.