TBSC History.

On an August morning in 1918, Frank Buckley, sailing with his eight-year-old son, Peter, in his 16-foot dinghy, Elf, challenged Frank Mathews in Margaret to a “race” round rocks in the bay. While Frank Mathews won, the much more far-reaching result was that the two sailors that evening went to see William Smellie at Craig y Mor and the three decided to investigate the support for forming a sailing club.

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The following August, a handicap race was held with six boats ranging from 13 to 18 feet long participating, and on the 23rd of August 1919, at a meeting held in the Trearddur Bay Hotel, Trearddur Bay Sailing Club was founded by the 15 men and 2 women in attendance. A week later, a committee decided to order a number of 12 foot dinghies to be ready for racing in 1920. By that following summer, five of the 12 foot boats, by then known as the Insect class, and three of a 14 foot class, called Myths, were raced.
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The Insects ceased to be a class in 1972 but three of them were in good enough condition to lead the Sail past in 2019, celebrating the club’s centenary. This was a spectacular sight in which 114 boats sailed from main bay to Porth Diana, passing under the flagstaff for review by the Commodore.

No original Myths remain but the Myth class has seen a great resurgence of support with many new boats being built to bring the current fleet to nearly 50. The third of the “traditional” boat classes raced at TBSC, the Half Raters, was adopted for racing in Trearddur in 1922. These Classic Boats make a spectacular sight racing into the bay with their colourful spinnakers flying, and sail “round the Stacks” to and from Holyhead once a season. Other classes have come and gone in popularity; currently, in addition to the Half Raters and Myths, Fevas and Optimists plus miscellaneous classes, are raced.

Membership is now full at 1,150 as the club functions only in August, and has limited facilities. This makes it a holiday sailing club, rather unusually, and many members sail elsewhere during the year.