West Cumbria Watercraft Club News.

We've been launching from the slipway on the North Shore at Whitehaven recently and found it pretty easy compared to previous occasions providing the tide is right and the conditions calm. Had a run up to Workington recently at high tide. Blasting under the bridges with a 8m meter tide is pretty nifty.

Met a few of the local kite surfing lads recently and though I'd give it a try this winter, so I bought a kite and other gear. Had my first taste last weekend. Pretty painful! Here's some photo's. (Not of me but of the experts!)

First update in while, no real club news, although we have a few new guys who ride with us from time to time as the weather has been pretty poor some of them are not so keen ;-). Not been a bad summer so far on the whole. Been spending most of the summer getting more into wakeboarding. Been dabbling the past few years but been making a concentrated effort this year. Had a few lessons from the guys down at Port Haverigg Watersports off the back of their Mastercraft and Super Air Nautique boats. Props go to Jason and Lee for the lessons and advice. If you get the chance get down there and check em out, sweet setup down there. Their website is here.

Just got a new board and bindings from JustWaterSports.com, excellent service and advice from Lesley. If your in the market for any watersport related kit give her a shout. Excellent advice and keen prices.

We've had a few good runs out lately. We had a couple of visitors from Carlisle and Preston recently and had a run down to Ravenglass on one occasion and up to Whitehaven on another. The Esk estuary was fun in the rain. 65mph on glass in the estuary into driving rain was like getting stabbed in the face by a handful of pins! There are galleries for those days here and here.

We also had a trip on the WindRider rib on Sunday 29th May. The rib is a 500 Bhp Humber rib that operates out of Whitehaven harbour and runs 90 minutes trips into the Irish Sea in almost any conditions. The sea conditions on Sunday weren't flat with 3-4 ft swells at times, although towards the end of the trip things had calmed down a little coming back to Whitehaven so we managed to get close to full throttle at one point. Even with 13 people on board and almost a full tank of fuel we were shifting along nicely (51 knots!). We were taken south down the coast past the cliffs heading towards St Bees to check out the Seabird colonies. Although we've been past there many times on the ski's it's more spectacular when you have time to look around and take in the scenery. We then went about 4-5 miles off shore to see porpoise's, however we were unlucky on this occasion as they must have moved off elsewhere (they had been seen on the morning trip). Overall the trip was excellent value and highly recommended. (An excellent cure for a hangover some of us discovered!). The guys that run the trip (John and Richard) are top blokes, contact them using the details from the link here.

We tried to get out on Saturday for what would have been the best wave jumping this year but we missing the best opportunity to get into the water by about an hour due to my lateness from work. According to the M2 buoy data (South West of the Isle of Man) there were swells of up to 3.3 metres. There are some photo's of the conditions in the gallery here. As it was high tide taking the chance of getting the ski's into the water in those breakers was just too risky from the slip. Had we timed it so we could have got them in from the sand there would have been no problem, concrete tends to have an adverse effect on a fibreglass hull!

Update to say that we ended up not going again. The conditions were not ideal Friday, Saturday or Sunday and the lack of safety boat meant it would have been unsafe to do it. There is only one winner especially at this time of year when the sea temperature is not at its warmest (around 10 degrees at the moment, compared to 20 ish in summer time.) We had a decent run up to Workington and down to Ravenglass though at high water each time and got a little way up the River Derwent and the estuary at Ravenglass.

We'll have another crack at it in the summer when people are more organised and not so worried about the cold. I must be said that it was doable on each of the days, however Monday was a certainty, very little wind and very calm sea conditions even 8 miles out. My new dry suit and boots are just the ticket for this time of year, I'd previously used 5-7mm wetsuit, 7mm balaclava, 3mm neoprene gloves, neoprene boots and goggles and suffered after a few hours particularly if standing still for any length of time. No more!

http://www.wetsuitoutlet.co.uk

Finally acquired a new digital camera so hopefully should get some decent images on the site of our excursions.

I've updated the web page for the 2005 Isle of Man trip. Check it out here.

I've added the sponsorship forms for the 2005 trip to the Isle of Man.

Here in PDF format

and here in M$ Word.

We are going to have a second attempt at the Isle of Man at Easter weekend, I'll post more info as I get it. Hopefully the weather is going to be more forgiving this time! Again I've been lazy and not updated the site in some time. I had contact from an amateur photographer who just happened to be taking photo's on the day. He kindly gave me a free print of one of the pictures (of me of course!) and it was top notch. Here is a link to the gallery of some of the images he's done. His website is here and here can be be contacted here.

I'll be reissuing the sponsorship forms later tonite.

Here's the info from Nick the photographer.

Just a quick question - was it your club jumping the waves off the beach at St Bees on Monday 30th August this year? If so, I have loads of photographs of some of your members, as I happened to be on the beach at the time with my camera and kit. I was practising taking action shots with my telephoto lens and some have come out OK (if I do say so myself). I have attached some low resolution photos to this email - hope you don't mind.

I'm a keen amateur photographer, specialising at the moment in landscapes and mountain scenes, but am starting to dabble in adventure sports photography. It's just a hobby for now, but hoping to take it more seriously soon. If you think your members will be interested I can upload low resolution photos to a page on my website, and if anybody wants a copy they can email me directly and I'll print the photos to any size. I can print up to A4 in-house (I live in St Bees), but if larger photos are required I can get them printed by a third party company (this will take a few days). The camera I use is a 6.3 megapixel digital SLR, so they are certainly good enough to print up to
A3 size.

I won't charge a lot for any prints - I can supply A4 prints, with or without text saying date/event etc, for about £5 each, or less for a few prints. Any other sizes please ask. The photos I've sent now have not been optimised yet, so a bit of tweaking may make them look better.
As I said they are low resolution images, 800 x 533 pixels but the full size images are 3072 x 2048.

My website is www.stbeesimages.co.uk, but the Jetski photos are not on their yet - I'll only put them up if people are interested, and they can be placed on a hidden link so only your members can view them if preferred.

If you have any questions please ask and I'll be happy to answer them.

Added a brief page of video and screen captures from the Isle of Man charity cruise. It didn't happen due to the weather but we had a good days wave jumping. Here's the page.

Been a right lazy git lately and not updated the site in some time. Summer time (??) is not my favourite time to be sitting at a computer.....

Anyway, Carl is organising a sponsored trip to the Isle of Man. Check out the PWC Forum thread and also our page here for more information.

Oh yeah and I might as well mention that I acquired a 2000 model GP1200R ;-)

We attended the PWP meeting below. Excellent lunch, good to meet Chris Parry et al. Some worthwhile info gained.

We got word back from the Whitehaven Harbour Master that they have agreed to let us use the sealock to get to sea. He has outlined the rules and regs that we MUST adhere to in order for this to happen and continue to happen. This is on a trial basis and will be periodically reviewed. All the rules and regs are on the rules page.

We've recieved our logo from the printers Sign and Motif along with the first batch of membership cards and the stickers courtesy of Margrange Electrical who sponsored us for this first batch.
The Whitehaven News has offered to do a feature for us. Carl and I gave the reporter a few words and had a quick "photo shoot" on the slip in the marina. Should be in Thursday's edition hopefully.
The PWP has invited us to the Managing Personal Watercraft roadshow at Wallasey on the 22nd April. Should be good fun as the afternoon allows delegates to try out the latest craft. Seadoo RXP anyone?

We got notification from the harbour master that we can use the sealock gates to put to sea. The cost will be £10 to £20 depending on the number of skis. I'll have to complete the VHF radio course and get a radio. Mobile phone will suffice in the interim.

Site Stuff
Added some location information.
Added the benefits page.

Carl and I completed the RYA PWC course over at Hartlepool Marina on Sunday. Definately worthwhile. It was fun 2 up on the Seadoo XP Ltd where we found out several times that the North Sea is certainly a lot colder than the Irish Sea. Dry suits a must for winter in the North Sea.

Site Stuff.
Add some Rules and Regs relating to St Bees.
Added some photos from our first outing this year. (Lazy gits or scared of the cold? Take your pick!)
Added a link to our newly formed web forum. Thanks Jack!
Added some more weblinks.

Website goes online. I'll be progressively adding content as time allows. Added links to other other sites and added a page for each of the links on the left (with at least a basic page). Added contact details to the contact page.

We've started dialogue with Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners to look into use of the marina slipway and lock gates for Personal Watercraft to get to sea. We have put our proposal to the Harbour Master and it is currently being reviewed by the board with a view to logistics (parking etc etc) and also cost of course!!.

We have also asked for use of the marina facilities (showers, toilets, disabled facilities) by the club.

Also emailed the Whitehaven Boating and Sailing Club to look at affiliating the two clubs.

We've also approached a well known online EShop supplying boating/watercraft equipment and they agreed to a small discount (5-10%) for members when purchasing from them. Members will be notified of how to obtain the discount.