New Sailing Management Centre (Start Hut) Updates

Update 8 December 2019

Those of you who have visited the club recently will have already seen the very good progress being made on the building of the new sail management centre. The old start box has been demolished, the sub base reutilised, blockwork built, steel frame erected and timber frame built and boarded. The roof beams are on and it won't be long before the roof will be covered.

Our monthly meeting with the contractors confirmed that we are well on schedule and we have made our first scheduled claim on the grant monies, which cover some 80% of the cost, against the contractors first invoice. A couple of unforeseen items have occurred but have been resolved very quickly by our very experienced premises team.

Behind the scenes Dave Charlton, on behalf of the Sailing Committee, is ensuring that all the sailing fit out needs are covered and Billy Button is making sure that everything will be in place for his installation of the communications equipment.

In the meantime we have successfully managed to continue our racing from the club line. Thanks must go to our very helpful contractors in erecting some additional scaffolding, to those who have come up with a means of starting the racing, to our OOD's who have had to improvise using the outdoor system, especially during the last few cold weeks, and to our racing sailors who have continued to race with less than perfect starting facilities. Plans to use an electronic system for the Christmas Cracker pursuit race are already in place.

Duncan Nicholson, Roger Robertson and myself are currently finalising the details of the the balcony balustrade, new CCTV and dealing with contractor's queries as they occur. We hope that it will now not be long before the building is watertight so that should the winter weather take a turn for the worse it will not cause any delay of its completion.

There will be a suspension of works over the Christmas period but work will restart again in earnest in the New Year and I will keep you all up to date of its progress.

Best regards

Alice

Alice Davies
Premises Committee Chair

Update 18 October 2019

GREAT NEWS!!!

I am delighted to be able to announce that the club has been awarded a Department of Environment/EU LEADER grant towards the new planned sail management centre (replacing the old start box). This grant represents some 80% of the build costs and secures enough funds to allow us to proceed with the build within our available budget.

It has taken more than two years of hard work by a number of dedicated individuals to go from initial recognition that the old start hut needed to be replaced and the first tentative sketches and specifications, to the position we are in today, ready to start work on a terrific new club facility. The grant funding was essential to achieving our goal of a landmark building in the vernacular Essex for Brightlingsea's waterfront, that would not only provide us with a replacement start hut, but would also incorporate a dedicated event management space (replacing the annually rented Kathy's cabin which will save money in the long term) and much needed additional training space.

Below is a copy of the elevation drawing of the new building from which you can see how the much improved start box on the first floor and the ground floor permanent race events office and training room will look.

903-12 ELEVATIONS[1].jpg

The build programme will commence on 1^st November 2019 with our contractor Wright Ruffell (Sturricks) Ltd erecting the compound and perimeter fence. The demolition will start on 14^thNovember. The existing foundation will be used to support the new ground floor slab which will extend about a metre all round the existing base. Work then commences on the shell of the building that will be completed by mid March. Our club members will then fit out the building. Our goal is to have everything up and running before Easter 2020.

We shall have to move a few boats to allow for the compound and to provide temporary access to boats in the front row of the dinghy park. Below is a plan showing the compound area (blue) and the temporary access route (green). All members' whose boats are affected will be contacted directly.

Compound.png

For safety reasons the access to the contractor's compound area will be restricted to contractors only during the construction work and no one including members are to enter the area. The contractors have very kindly agreed to provide a temporary scaffolding to attach flag halyards so that we can continue to start the races during the winter series by using flags, as we will be unable to use the light board during construction.

Please bear with us during the construction work. We are sure that the final outcome will be worth waiting for!

Best regards

Alice

Alice Davies
Premises Committee Chair