About us
Llandudno Sailing Club
We are a family based dinghy sailing club with a clubhouse situated on the promenade at Llandudno, with excellent views over the whole of Llandudno Bay. The club is RYA affiliated and runs a full Club Racing programme, predominantly mixed fleet racing as well as a Social programme. We are an accredited RYA Training Centre with all the guarantees of safety and quality that denotes and run courses for club juniors and adults as well school and affiliated groups such as the Aberconwy Sea Cadets. The club has an excellent record of enabling complete beginners to quickly become competent Club dinghy sailors.
The Club has an enviable record of running National Championships, and usually hosts one or more every year during July or August.
The Club racing programme runs between late March and early November, with racing every Sunday. During the summer months there is also racing at 19:00 on Wednesday nights, and training sessions for members wanting to learn or to improve on Saturdays. The Club has a number of boats available for training by new members.
The social side of sailing
We’re a club that love to get as much of the family involved as possible. From club dinners, to weekend social events there is something at Llandudno Sailing Club for everyone to get involved with. You can join our club as just a social member, even if you don’t want to get out on the water! Get in touch to find out more or keep an eye on our events calendar for the next social.
Club history
There have been sailing races in Llandudno Bay since the mid 1800’s! The oldest trophy in the present club is the Easter Tankard. This was first presented by ‘the Ladies of Llandudno for racing on Bank Holiday Monday in 1868’. The local papers record various regattas throughout the 1800’s but does not mention a sailing club as such. There is a reference to a club at the turn of the century and old minute books are held in the Conwy Archives for 1899 through to 1903. In 1907 there was a big northerly storm which devastated the fleet of Half-Raters that were on moorings in the Bay. This, followed by World War 1, finally saw the demise of the Club. In 1960 an enthusiastic group of dinghy sailors got together and reformed the ‘Llandudno Sailing Club’. They held their first meeting in November 1962 and started their first full season in 1963 when they hosted the GP14 National Championship for the first time. In the early days there was no slipway. Boards were loaded onto the ‘Ted-yr-Ogo’ (the club rescue boat) and then laid over the shingle to facilitate launching.
Eventually a new slipway was proposed by the council and after much discussion it was decided to build this opposite the Imperial Hotel. Lord Mostyn and Mostyn Estates gave permission to build a new clubhouse on the nearest piece of land to the slipway, unfortunately some 300 metres away. The present clubhouse was opened in 1968 and extended in 2012 in time for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the present club.
Conwy County Council decided to build a new slipway opposite the Clubhouse. This was to replace the old wooden slipway which had been destroyed in another northerly storm in May 2013 and was completed in time for the 2015 season. Llandudno Sailing Club has been the venue for major National Championships almost every year since that first event in 1963. Most of the major dinghy classes have held their prime event of the season on the waters of Llandudno Bay.