Junior & Youth Sailing Adventure to Lymington - Saturday 15th August
Published 15:40 on 18 Aug 2026
Our Junior and Youth sailing groups combined last Saturday for an amazing summer adventure to Lymington!
27 young members sailing, 10 dinghies, 6 miles, 4 supports boats, and 50 ice creams!!
With an initial 10-15 knots of NNE breeze, the group soon left the Hawkers channel behind them and set out into the Solent. Long tacks up the Solent, and short tacks back towards the sea wall, plus some energetic onboard hiking, saw the club fleet make great strides to arrive into the Oxey Lake.
Anchoring the support ribs in the Oxey lake, with the Salterns pond nestled in the tree line where many of our group fondly started their sailing, gave the young crews a chance to have a welcome break and compare notes so far!
Sailing on through the inshore channels, all the dinghies continued to tack on towards the main Lymington river channel markers where they were rounded up by the support ribs, de-rigged, and towed for the final river stretch into Lymington.
Ashore in the vicinity of the Bath Road slipway provided a perfect position to have a packed lunch, watch all the river activity, and finish with an ice cream!
With the afternoon breeze forecast to drop, and the tropical temperatures ashore in Lymington doing anything but drop, the dinghies re-rigged and set off under sail in small groups down the Lymington river to reconvene outside the main river channel markers.
Back out in the Solent, the west going ebb tide became our new best friend and, despite the now very light easterly breeze, all the dinghies managed to brilliantly sail themselves all the way back to Keyhaven!
A special thank you to Lymington Harbour Commissioners for accommodating the group on the harbour pontoon.
A further huge thanks to all who supported this summer adventure - a total of 50 KYC members were involved in all, made up the 27 youngsters, who did all the sailing there and back, and the supporting parents afloat and ashore.
Lymington, we will remember you!
