Tony Cross in the New Honorary Regional Secretary - a retired businessman who lives on the riverside at Mistley. A members of Haven Ports Yacht club where he has been club secretary in the past, he is recently retired as chairman of the Haven Series. He started his sailing career in a clinker dinghy on the north Norfolk coast and later joined Brancaster Staithe SC, rising to the rank of commodore. In those days he sailed a Parker lifting keel yacht, ideal for the drying creeks and harbours. today he sails a Jenneau Sunfast 35 out of Suffolk Yacht Harbour and still occasionally crews in races for his son Tim.

Regional Chairman Chris Edwards said : "we are delighted to welcome Tony as a member of our team where I'm sure he will continue the excellent upgrade of our systems that his predecessor Jim has so ably put in place  over the past two years. Jim leaves with our good wishes for his new venture in Cardiff. 

 

Entries have now opened for the 2010's premier youth sailing event- the RYA Volvo youth National Championship; book your place on line by visiting www.rya.org.uk/racingevents/pages/default.aspx  >>> more

 

 

 

Eastern Region Instructors conference - March 14th at Grafham Water Centre ,  >>> more  Note : the  booking form and agenda links are on the TRAINING page

 

We are introducing a new communications system between the Regional Organisation and clubs and individual members within the Eastern Region. The cost, mainly in terms of time, of producing the quarterly newsletter RYA East News has become prohibitive. The Editor is responsible for supplying a regular stream of news to the Regional Website.>>> more

 

The will be a new Instructor membership category from February this year with various added benefits ->>>more

 

New RYA Chief Cruising Instructor Richard Falk takes up the position of Chief Cruising Instructor in February. Richard replaces the outgoing Simon Jinks, who is leaving after five years in the role.An Australian, Richard has lived in the UK for five years and is an RYA Yachtmaster Instructor and Examiner. He has been Principal of an RYA training centre. Richard is also an experienced cruising and racing sailor, having skippered the Singapore entry for the Clipper Ventures Round the World Race. He has a commercial motor boat certificate. He will be responsible for ensuring that the RYA’s sail cruising practical and shore based courses are correctly implemented and run at RYA training centres in addition to refining the existing curriculum.

 

 

 

The RYA and the NSSA have signed a MoU to combine force to promote sailing for younger people   >>> more

 

 

 

 

 

Should we save Orfordness Lighthouse?  as part of its regular five-yearly review of its navigation aids, Trinity House is recommending abandoning Orfordness Lighthouse. The review report says the advice is to "Discontinue all Aids to Navigation at this station in conjunction with increasing the range of the light at Southwold lighthouse to 24nm." >>> more

 

 

 

 

National recognition for John Derbyshire - who has been awarded an OBE in the New Years honours list for services to sport and sailing . He is the  RYA  Performance Director and Racing Manager.

 CEO Rod Carr said "John is one of the unsung heroes of sailing and fully deserves this public accolade" more >>>

 

 

 

Journalists honour Rod Carr. The Yachting Journalists’ Association (YJA) at the Yachtsman of the Year lunch presented Rod Carr OBE, with a ‘Special Award’ for his contribution to sailing and boating during his lifetime,. June Hamilton, Chairman of the YJA said: "Rod has made a huge contribution to our sport over the years and has been a great inspiration to a generation of sailors. With this in mind we wanted to present him with this special award in recognition of his achievements." Yachting journalists presented him with a pair binoculars in a specially engraved presentation box. Rod said of his award: "I am very humbled to receive this award from the YJA. Throughout my career I have been lucky enough to work in an industry that I love and to receive an award for doing what is a true passion of mine is simply icing on the cake."

 

 

Three young East Coast sailors were honoured at this year’s Young Sailor of the Year Awards at the London Boat Show. Aaron Lowther and Steve Curtis, our regional winners, were presented with their regional awards by Ben Ainslie. They narrowly missed out on receiving the overall national Young Sailor of the Year Award. The third East Coast youngster to receive an award was West Mersea sailing starlet Alice Kent who along with crew Lucy Childs attends Oakham School in Rutland, and were jointly voted RYA East Midlands Regional Young Sailors of the Year. Aaron and Steve won the Honda RYA Youth RIB Championship in record times for the second consecutive year, and are now involved with training other youngsters in driving RIBs. Alice and Lucy enjoyed a sensational 2009 during which they were crowned Ladies’ RS Feva European Champions at Lake Garda, Italy in July. The awards were presented by Skandia Team GBR star and three-time Olympic champion Ben Ainslie, a previous winner himself, and recognise the outstanding achievements of young sailors across the country.

Winter pleasures - Our thanks to Tony Tiffen of Brogborough Boardsailing Club in　
Bedfordshire for sending this picture. As he says: "it's a bit chilly　
but　 but some are never daunted at a slight drop in temperature."　
Advice is to wrap up warm and take an ice pick.

 

 

 

Senior Instructor course being held in Tollesbury and Alton Water - full details can be found on the Training page

Changes in RYA Certification- a joint initiative between the RYA and the MCA has resulted in the old Coastal Skipper being renamed Yachtmaster Coastal with effect from 1st January 2010. more >>> 

 

 

 

 

A wind farm larger than the county of Norfolk is to be built off Lowestoft and Yarmouth. The Government has announced the nine Round 3 additional wind farms to be sited round the coast of the UK. The two biggest farms will be built in the North Sea. All are scheduled to be fully operational before 2020. The second largest is a 7.2 GW output wind farm to be built on an area centred 55.5 Kilometres from the Norfolk coast, in waters ranging from 70 metres to 5 metres deep. The wind farm will cover an area 6,036.8 square kilometres, which is approximately 10 per cent larger than the county of Norfolk itself. This is the shallowest of all the Round 3 zones. The even larger 9 GW output farm is being built on the Dogger Banks. The sites stretch from the North east coast of Scotland down the East Coast, along the South coast and round into the Irish Sea.  See map >>> more

FOGHORN - the December 2009 issue has just been published and can be found under this link, for those not familiar with the publication it is the  newsletter of  RYA Sailability and has a full report on recent activities including the 3rd Annual Sailability Multiclass Regatta and details of event in the coming year fund under our Event page more >>>