Tenby Champs 7th - 13th August 2004

Suggested best approaches are as follows: through the Tenby website and F B M Holidays, Coastal Cottages and Visit Wales (Welsh Tourist Board), as it is being booked up already! Use the web and a search engine such as Google and you'll find them or phone them. Go for it now and don't delay a moment. Tenby 2004 will be the sailing event of the year without a doubt. So don't miss out.

Notice 2 from Guy

At the Champs in fantastic Tenby from the 7 - 13th August, we want to enliven the Friday evening Prizegiving and make it the social evening of the week (after the Pimms Party and the Crews Union) We want to offer a hot decent meal and a disco etc if it is wanted. Will competitors stay the Friday evening if we make the extra effort - after all the sailing is over so party time commences! Let me know please or tell me why not.... ps have you booked your accommodation yet or you'll have to share with Ian S, BE WARNED

Preview

Why oh why each year since God was a small boy have I longed for the Freddie Championships and the crazy fun the class all seemingly have each year? It's a good question as the memories are often hazy through unintentional alcholic poisoning. One can blame many people over the years, various members of the Peters family, Howard Williams for sure, David Booth is another culprit, so too Angus Armstrong, Steve Greaves certainly, "even mild mannered" Richard Thompson! But then other memories flood back and some of this year's venue - beautiful Tenby.

Can anyone ever forget the amusement over the "Alex D in the Dock" incident. Yet another classic when a small amount of excess imbibing led to Alex slipping off his outside seat on the Tenby quayside in the small hours, whereupon he fell 6 feet to land thankfully safely in the dock mud where he then slept it off. Clearly Canute played a role in holding back the incoming tide allowing Alex to "come round" from his, unusual to say the least, sleeping arrangement none the worse for wear after brief hospitalisation. Worth every penny of my tax!

So here we go again, longing for balmy summer breezes, the inevitable longish drive to the coast and the annual test of the trailer's wheels and bearings and then the fun and chaos of meeting up with all those firefly friends who frequent the champs seeemingly every other year. It must be a sort of cold turkey effect that rallies up the freddie sailor to be able at best to miss just the odd year before returning to the fold.

So what brings us back? Well this year being at Tenby we are guaranteed a really friendly welcome by the Tenby club locals, we're also sailing in great waters with minimal tides and in the safety of the bay sheltered from the prevailing westerlies and the Atlantic swell. Tenby the town is a charming, vibrant Welsh holiday area offering seafood, restaurants, ices and beers a plenty. This will be the first year also that the Fireflies have enjoyed the new additional club facilities following their balcony extension, top floor galley area and new changing facilities. It will be our fourth visit to Tenby and that helps as the class and the club know each other well.

Tenby Sailing Club has been staging National Dinghy Championships for more than 25 years with at least one major class visiting each year, including Fireballs, Larks, Fireflies, Scorpions, Toppers, National 12s, Merlin Rockets, Redwings and Ospreys. Blake Shaw PRO and his team run a tight ship and we are more or less guaranteed great close fleet racing as only Freddie Sailors know!

So whats the Social Programme I hear the class chanting? Well all your favourites plus a few more but based around only two days when we enjoy "two races a day", as the committee felt more than that was over egging the custard (have I made that up? Surely yes as I only cook one dish) to include anymore races as we want time to relax and chill out(seems good to me - Ed).

Firefly Week Social Programme
Saturday Commodore s Reception (hot food and drinks)
Sunday RNLI Fundraising Band and social at the Club
Monday NFA - AGM and Free night (social event to be announced such as Pimms
Party I fear...)
Tuesday Bar-B-Q at Club
Wednesday Gore and Marlow Prizegiving Party - champagne, blue nasties
Thursday Band at Club (local Blues, rock, 60s v hot!)
Friday Prizegiving Buffet

With a social programme like this I'd book into rehab on your return home...

So what's the date... Saturday 7th to Friday 13th August. Also book that holiday accommodation as soon as poss, as others love to visit Tenby! Here are some hot tips for finding flats, lets, caravans and campsites contact Tenby website and F B M Holidays, Coastal Cottages and Visit Wales (Welsh Tourist Board). So don't delay do it today and lets enrol for the Duckhams Award, as it could be you, though it will probably be Don, Angus, Will, Mel, Alex, Gilly or not forgetting Ed Smith if form is any guide. See you all there! Guy Davison (lobbying for an over 50s prize)

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