Nottinghamshire County Sailing Club

The Notts County Officers Sailing Club was formed in 1955 and sailing took place on the River Trent at West Bridgford. The membership was restricted to employees of Notts County Council. In February 1961 the present club was founded and renamed Nottinghamshire County Sailing Club and moved to limited facilities on the Trent at Stoke Bardolph. Four nights a week were allocated to instruction and the fleet consisted of a dozen boats, three of which belonged to the club. In June 1962 the club sought recognition from the RYA, various schools were affiliated and racing was introduced for: Heron, GP14, Graduate and Enterprise dinghy classes. Later other classes were added, including: Fireball, Merlin, Laser and Scorpion. The club’s next major change was its move to Hoveringham Water in April 1986. The increased expanse of water led to many Windsurfers joining. After a major building programme, involving many club members, the clubhouse was opened in 1989. In 1993/4 the lake was emptied. Tarmac removed the remainder of the gravel and enlarged the lake to its present size. A further development of the clubhouse took place in 1996, when the clubroom and changing rooms were enlarged, disabled access and facilities provided, and a new race office built. The Sports Council Lottery contributed well over half of the funds the rest being raised by the club. Sir Michael Attiyah, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge opened the clubroom on the 29 June 1996. The club has been recognised as a RYA approved training centre since 1975. The club achieved Volvo Champion Club status in 1999 in recognition of its commitment to junior training. This status is awarded to clubs that consistently deliver high standards of coaching, competition, social activities and environmental awareness, for youth sailors. In 2000 the ability to provide courses and training was enhanced by a lottery grant, which enabled the Club to replace its training fleet with six Toppers, six Laser Stratos and a 405. The club has a number of youngsters on National training squads, both for dinghy sailing and windsurfing. The club was runner up in the 2008 and 2013 RYA Club of the Year national awards and won the Facilities Category in the 2018 awards.