Cross Channel Rally

This is a wonderful opportunity to experience passage making and to reach places beyond the Solent! It gives relatively inexperienced members the chance to be more adventurous, as well as building their skills and experience in the company of Yachtmaster instructors. In 2019 we had 14 boats and nearly 70 members! It is great fun and an excellent way to meet and get to know some of your fellow members.

This will be our eleventh passage across the Channel and we will return to the very popular and picturesque fishing port of St Vaast on the Cherbourg Peninsula. We will be organising our usual ‘bubbles and nibbles’ on the yachts on the Friday evening and a delicious dinner at La Marina Restaurant on the Saturday.

We are particularly excited as our 2020 event will coincide with ‘La Fête de la Mer’ (Blessing of the Sea) in St Vaast on the Sunday, which only happens every 10 years! Up to 20,000 visitors will be expected to attend the blessing outdoors presided over by the Bishop de la Manche, and is in memory of those who have lost their lives in the sea since 1945 – 20 shipwrecks and 58 sailors. It will take place in front of the port and marina and all the fishing boats. From the Saturday night to the Sunday morning the whole of St Vaast will be transformed by more than a million paper flowers of all colours and patterns, not to mention the 500,000 flowers that will be made by the fishermen and their families to decorate their boats! It will be a wonderful sight.