Why Dorset Is The Place To Travel To If You Like Sailing
Posted in Fly Fishing Gear on the May 29, 2011
If you simply adore sailing, then a visit to Dorset in the south of England is not going to disappoint.
Dorset is going to be home to the 2012 Olympic games sailing event and sailing doesn’t get much better than this. It doesn’t matter if you could not get any tickets for the sailing events because there will certainly sites to see the sailing for nothing.
In Weymouth and Portland the sailing events (between 12:00 and 18:00) are:
29 July, Men’s Finn, Star, Women’s Elliott 6m
30 July, Men’s 49er, Finn, Laser, RS:X, Star,Women’s Elliott 6m, Laser Radial, RS:X
31 July, Men’s 49er, Finn, Laser, RS:X, Star, Women’s Elliott 6m, Laser Radial, RS:X
1 August, Men’s 49er, Laser, RS:X Women’s Elliott 6m, Laser Radial, RS:X
2 August, Men’s 49er, 470, Finn, Star, Women’s 470, Elliott 6m
3 August, Men’s 49er, 470, Finn, Laser, Star, Women’s 470, Laser Radial
4 August, Women’s 470, Elliott 6m, Laser Radial, RS:X
5 August, Men’s 49er, Finn (medal race & victory ceremony), RS:X, Star (medal race & victory ceremony), Women’s RS:X
6 August, Men’s 49er, 470, Laser (medal race & victory ceremony), Women’s 470, Laser Radial (medal race & victory ceremony)
7 August, Men’s 470, RS:X (medal race & victory ceremony), Women’s 470, Elliott 6m, RS:X (medal race & victory ceremony)
8 August, Men’s 49er (medal race & victory ceremony), Women’s Elliott 6m
9 August, Men’s 470 (medal race & victory ceremony), Women’s Elliott 6m
10 August, Women’s 470 (medal race & victory ceremony), Elliott 6m
11 August, Women’s Elliott 6m (medal race, victory ceremony)
There are fantastic sailing events going on within the county prior to the Olympics too. The 2011 Sail for Gold Regatta will take place from 5th -11th June at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy and it is part of the ISAF sailing World Cup. There are actually 16 races for Match and 49er, 11 races for RSXM, RSXW, Finn, Radial, Laser, 470M, 470W and Star, and 10 races for 2.4m, Skud and Sonar.
In July there is the International Federation of Disabled Sailing (IFDS) World Cup which is actually the most prestigious event in the disabled sailing calendar outside of the Paralympic Games, and in August you have the Olympic sailing test event which will be a full competitive event to test the sailing facilities ahead of the Olympics.
For anybody who is interested in the Paralympic sailing events, the Paralympic tickets go on sale 9 September this year, with the Paralympic events being held between the 29th August and 9th September 2012.
If trying your hand at sailing is a bit more your thing, there’s lots of sailing schools in the region including Poole, Studland, Weymouth and Portland, with sailing in Poole Harbour, Portland Harbour and Weymouth Bay, and then of course there’s all the sailing socialising to be done too…
With the Weymouth Relief Road now open, driving around ought to be easy. Holiday accommodation will book up very quickly, with dates covering the Olympic period already sold out in some cases, so book as soon as you can. Dorset cottages are available to hire, and there are plenty of B&B’s, hotels and camp sites in the region too. To find out what accommodation is available, try searching for ‘holiday cottages Dorset‘, ‘camp sites in Dorset’ or ‘accommodation Dorset’ in Google.