Gresford Sailing Club

Gresford Sailing Club was founded in 1959 by Arthur Jones, with his friend Reg Gibbs, as a community based club with the aim of encouraging family sailing and low membership costs. This still remains the ethos of the Club. Our lake “The Flash” was part of Arthur’s farm and he lived next to the lake. The farm is now run by Arthur’s family who continue to support the sailing at the Flash. As a private lake all sailing on the Flash is managed through the sailing club. Dinghy Sailing was the starting point for the club in 1959. Racing was always a big part of building and honing sailing skills from the beginning of the club. We hold races on a Wednesday evening and Saturday mornings. Social sailing takes place on Sundays and Tuesdays. Wednesday evening is always a popular series. With a 7.00pm start this is a personal pursuit race, so the better you are at sailing the later you start and have to catch up and pass the lead boat, the race lasts for 50 minutes, first over the finish line is the winner. Saturday morning starts racing at 10.00 and has a variety of races which change throughout the year but are run as a series of about 12 races per series. GSC has produced many excellent sailors over the years - In 1977 Graham and Martin Ellis became Mirror class UK National and European champions. - In 1994 Ben Dutton and Alex Brereton repeated this same achievement. Many other top flight sailors got an early taste of Sailing at Gresford Flash. They have since competed in many races with high placing. This tradition goes on with some of our junior sailors having recently competed at National and International level. Gresford SC is an RYA Accredited Training Establishment. Junior Sailing started in the 1960s on Friday Evenings and has flourished ever since. As well as those who have gon onto achieve national and international success, many more have very fond memories of their time sailing with Gresford Juniors. Across North Wales Gresford is also widely known amongst young (and formerly young) sailors as a Sweet shop with sailing attached. We also run a series of RYA Adult Training courses in Dinghies and Power Boat level 2 through the year. We have a very active model boat section which meets on a Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, there are a wide range of boats sailed here so why not come down and sail you won’t even have to get your feet wet! Gresford SC is an RYA Sailability Foundation club with accessible facilities. We also have Sport Wales Insport Ribbon accreditation. The Club is run by a small committee.