West Kirby Sailing Club
West Kirby Sailing Club is the biggest sailing club north of the M4.
It is one of the leading clubs in the country and is acknowledged as a centre of excellence for many sailing activities. It has led the development of team racing in the UK and the world. Sailing takes place on the marine lake on weekday evenings between April and October and at weekends from April to December. There is also tidal sailing between April and October.
The Clubhouse opens six nights each week (not Sunday nights) and at lunch time at weekends, Bank Holidays and Wednesdays.
It is Club policy for a whole family to join at the same time whenever possible. The club aims to be as welcoming and helpful as possible.
The Dee Estuary is a tidal and the trot moorings flood approximately two hours forty minutes before high water. Our racing finishes about an hour and a half after high water on an average tide. The height of tide varies and the best racing occurs with a height over eight metres.There are three tidal moored classes, Stars, Falcons and Hilbres, which have organised races, usually at weekends according to the height and time of the tides.
Stars are the Club’s senior class and are clinker built (ie overlapping planks) and date back originally to 1906. Falcons are similar to a large dinghy and are now mainly of glass fibre construction, although we still have a number of wooden Falcons which remain competitive. Hilbres are heavier clinker built boats with a cuddy (cabin top).
The dinghy classes use the marine lake in the evening during the week and either the tide or lake at weekends. Our dinghy classes comprise Fireflies (highly manoeuvrable, 12 foot, 2 sail boats) GP14s (14 foot, 3 sail, general purposes dinghies), Lasers (nearly 13 foot, glass fibre, single sail dinghies), Larks (14 foot, glass fibre, 3 sail dinghies) and Mirrors (small gunter rigged dinghies). Exclusively for junior members are the fleets of Cadets and Optimists. Cadets are small 3 sailboats for 2 people. Optimists are single sailed, solo crewed boats, particularly suitable for the younger helm.
Our most recent addition to the dinghy classes is the Illusion, (a single handed keel boat, in miniature).
An outline of the week’s dinghy sailing programme is :-
Mondays: Training & Assymetric dinghies
Tuesdays: Fireflies and Lasers
Wednesdays: Handicap dinghies and Illusions
Thursdays: GPs
Fridays: Cadets and Youth Handicap
Saturdays: Mirrors and Optimists
Sundays: Handicap Dinghies and Illusions
If you are new to sailing, you may be able to acquire practical sailing experience by crewing for other people during the season. You may wish to take sailing lessons, preferably at an approved Royal Yachting Association (RYA) establishment. The Club, as a recognised training establishment, runs training courses for members.