CLYDE CRUISING CLUB
 
DINGHY SECTION
 
SEAMANSHIP AND PILOTAGE TRUST
 
BARDOWIE LOCH

The Bardowie Building Project

The Bardowie Building Project is the most ambitious task that the Clyde Cruising Club has undertaken. The new Bardowie Clubhouse was formally opened by Boyd Tunnock, MBE on the 22nd May 2004 marking the culmination of a £450,000 project. The greatly improved facilities are much appreciated by trainees and instructors alike.

Bardowie is a Royal Yachting Association Recognised Teaching Establishment and is widely accepted as a Centre of Excellence for junior & youth sailing for which it has achieved RYA Volvo Champion Club status. The function of the facility is to introduce and train members in sailing and to develop attributes such as water safety, self-reliance, conforming to rules, and teamwork. These trainees are mostly children, but the membership, which is a present 480, includes eager adults and extremely enthusiastic disabled sailors utilising specially adapted Challenger trimarans. It really is remarkable that so much is achieved in such limited facilities. The new building makes provision to cover the needs of all sections and to allow new opportunities in training. Without Bardowie, some of these new sailors might never have had the opportunity to experience the delights of our sport. Training is available from complete beginners to the expert who may endeavour to emulate the successful young British sailors like Ellen MacArthur, Shirley Robertson or Ben Ainslie.

After snagging work, that is an inevitable feature of any new building, has been completed, attention will turn planning for upgrading the groundworks around the new clubhouse, forming "boat friendly" docking adjacent to the clubhouse and completion of the fit out of the upper floor areas that were not part of the initial build contract.