Army and Navy Club Yacht Squadron – Upcoming Events
The Army and Navy Club Yacht Squadron has an exciting calendar of events lined up for 2025. From thrilling sails to social gatherings, there’s something for every sailing enthusiast to enjoy.
Please find the upcoming events below. We look forward to welcoming you on board!
Preparations for next year’s Combat Arms Inshore Regatta get underway
The forecast for Saturday 16th August was for winds of Force 3-4 out of the northeast. This was more than sufficient for our first get together-cum-training session for next year’s Combat Arms Inshore Regatta (to which the Army and Navy Club Yacht Squadron has been invited to enter a crew). The idea for this first preparatory sail, was for potential crew members to try out small keel boat sailing. To do this we picked up the Army Sailing Association’s Folkboat we’d chartered from its mooring at Thorney Island at low water; then head out against the tide under power for a few enjoyable hours sailing aboard one of these fun 25ft yachts; and then to return under sail.
NB. The ASA Folkboats are available to all squadron members to charter, under our group membership, for just £60.00 per day.
Some say activities such as sailing trigger the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) rather than the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight). I would suggest sailing triggers both. Initially when you arrive at a strange port to take over a strange boat with familiar-but-unfamiliar systems and idiosyncrasies, you first give it a good fight and then when you realise you cannot even get the engine started, the flight aspect comes in as you contemplate a nearby pub on the way back from an abandoned day-sail.
Soon though, once you discover the fuel switch and realise the correct method to get halyard tension right, you start to review the turning tide and reaching winds more favourably. And that’s how it was with us as for the three of us from The Army & Navy Club Yacht Squadron as we dropped the mooring lines and puttered off with the outboard engine and a full mainsail downriver off Thorney Island. Quite soon we were all in our groove and decided to turn the engine off as the reaching winds were proving sufficient to beat the tide. Hoisting the small Folkboat jib we were off. Reaching the beautiful Chichester Harbour, following the lateral markers and avoiding the day-trippers we headed out to the Solent. This proved to be the tonic our parasympathetic nervous systems needed.
Since the Vice Commodore (Training) declined to get wet, we mostly sailed with the wind behind the beam turning back in towards the harbour after a quick lunch on the hoof. With Honorary Treasurer ably helming and yours truly tweaking the sails the return was reasonably uneventful, till about the end of the day when we reached ASA moorings to find the engine had again decided to not start despite the fuel switch being ‘on’ this time.
In the right spirit competent seamanship, we decided to practice picking up our mooring under sail; all good stuff, except there were trainee sailors and windsurfers – some in the water rather than on it – all around us. One chap had chosen to fall in quite close to our mooring! Being kindly folk, we decided to allow him time to swim to safety and made another pass at it, capturing the pickup buoy neatly this time around and shedding the mainsail as we did.
At this stage, after a fun if eventful day on the water, it was time to head off to the pub to plot our strategy for the Combat Arms Inshore Regatta 2026. If you like to find out more about joining us to enter this, please contact [email protected].
Gaurav Sarin
Vice Commodore Racing
Army & Navy Club Yacht Squadron
The Combat Arms Sailing Regatta 2026
Crew Call
The Army and Navy Club Yacht Squadron has been invited to compete in the 2026 Combat Arms Sailing Regatta. This will take place at the Seaview Yacht Club on the Isle of Wight. Dates will be confirmed later this year, but it’s likely to be Monday 11th to Wednesday 13th May 2026.
The racing will be in the Seaview Yacht Club’s Mermaids (which are keelboats and will be provided) and there will be a full social programme, including a welcome Drinks Party on the first evening and then a Dinner on the second evening after the day’s racing.
We are now seeking to form a crew and to this end we’re looking to have an informal get together and day sail on Saturday 16th August on an Army Sailing Association Folkboat in Chichester Harbour. We will also run a further training day in early 2026 possibly on the Royal Southern Yacht Club’s J/70 race boats.
The requirement for our crew members to have been ‘cap badged’ in either the cavalry or the infantry has been waived and serving, veterans or civilian members of the club are all most welcome.
The cost of the regatta will be £500.00 (split between the crew of three or four) and the cost for the Folkboat charter on the 16th August will be £60.00 (split between the crew.) You will also need to be a member, or if not already, join the Army and Navy Club Yacht Squadron (£40.00 pa).
To apply to join the crew or to find out more about the Army and Navy Club Yacht Squadron please email the squadron’s Vice Commodore – Racing through [email protected]
