Wednesday 10th February

Graham Thomas

Passage Planning, Pilotage and Yacht Delivery in the Med

In October 2016, Graham helped in crewing and navigating a move of two sailing school yachts from Trapani in Sicily to San Miguel in Tenerife. The journey of approximately 2000nm takes between 4-5 weeks and includes long passage planning, offshore sailing and coping with inclement weather, gear failure and being in close confines for long periods. Graham will tell us about this most interesting voyage;  the second part of the talk has a special focus on passage planning and preparation.

Graham is a Trustee and Treasurer for Bury Lake Young Mariners in Rickmansworth, a charity focused on promoting dinghy sailing for juniors and people with disabilities. He has been an RYA Dinghy Instructor there since 2014. He is also a member at Broadwater Sailing Club in Harefield where he enjoys the weekly racing events sailing his Laser.

Wednesday 10th March

Annual General Meeting

Wednesday 3rd March

Jenny Crickmore-Thompson and John Franklin

The Right Knots for Red Knickers - and - The South Africa Route

John and Jenny are members of GXSA but live in South Africa for part of the year. Some years ago, having never sailed before, Jenny replied to a skipper’s advert for crew and now she is married to him. Jenny has been Rear Commodore for the Ocean Cruising Club and received the 2019 OCC award. She will tell us about some of their recent sailing experiences (from her point of view…). 

As part of their OCC roles (John has been Commodore), they  kept contact with ocean sailors, particularly those crossing the Indian Ocean. John will describe traditional and recent routeing options for circumnavigating boats crossing the Indian Ocean and heading for the Caribbean, USA and Europe, and the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on cruising yachtsmen in 2020. Remarkably, a small group of ocean sailors were able to influence the South African government to allow access to foreign yachts on humanitarian grounds - John will tell us how.