Dear Joan,

IF YOU’RE SAILING WINDERMERE ON A FRIDAY

As well as being a DCA member I am also involved (as secretary and sailing instructor) with Blackwell Sailing, a small charity with its own modest facilities on Lake Windermere. Our objective is to provide sailing for people with disabilities at little or no cost. So far almost all of our members have been people with learning disabilities.

The project has developed over a number of years and has been helped considerably by local businesses and the long-term commitment from a few volunteers. We are proud of our sailing base that has a wet dock in which to keep our boats so that we hardly ever have to launch and recover them. (Really handy when sailing with a group who are not physically able to help.)

What we want to do more of (and this another of our objectives) is to ‘integrate with others in the sailing community. I have been looking for this sailing community for years without success (I thought I’d like to move there), and have now realised that it must be you lot. Nowhere else have I met people with similar type boats who are friendly and keen to help each other and very much committed to non-competitive sailing. So if you are sailing Windermere on a Friday and want some company please come and make friends, sail with us, share your picnic, swap capsize stories or just say ‘hello’. We will appreciate it and hope that you will enjoy meeting us too.

As Windermere is a little larger than your average sailing pond, here is what to look out for: We have a white Whammel boat (standing lug with traditional brown sails), a blue Beaufort 16ft dinghy, a Wanderer and a bright red R113. You are most likely to find us in the Blackwell Bay area, between Storrs and the ferry though we do sometimes cruise further on a fine day. We fly a black flag, if we remember, and usually sail between 11am and 3pm stopping for a lunch break somewhere. DH