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IYC Cadets 1988 – Present

When I was asked to write an article for the IYC 70th Anniversary magazine, as

someone who has been through cadets and stuck around in the club, I started to

remember all the good times experienced over the years and some of the sad,

which have led to the present day status of myself and the cadets.

My first experience of cadets was in the old clubhouse off Point Road when I

was about 6 or 7, and was started by Theresa Chuter and a couple of other ladies.

We met once a week and did what kids do best… have fun.

We did learn a lot about sailing, learning about knots, sails and all the basics, but

unfortunately no sailing came about. The cadet group, known as the “Snotties”

folded after about a year. By this time I was approaching the time when Cub

Scouts moved up to being Scouts, so I joined the 4th Canvey Sea Scouts.

It was about this time that I was bought a Barrow Boat Sailor, a 7ft lug rigged

sailing dinghy in kit form for my birthday. My father and I (or mainly my father)

built the dinghy in the garage at home and launched it with a bottle of lemonade

in true Swallow’s and Amazon’s style on a sunny afternoon some weeks later. In

truer style it was named “Death and Glory”.

And so I was finally experiencing the enjoyment of to quote Toad from The

Wind in the Willow, “messing about in boats”. This was the start of about 6 years

of my parents towing two dinghies behind their yacht “Whimbrel” on our

summer sailing holidays around the East Coast.

It was not for a couple of years that another cadet group was started, this time

being in the new clubhouse, by Adrian Pharro and his partner. This started off

very well, carrying on the teaching and a little bit of sailing in the Lark dinghies

the Club had acquired with the odd trip to boat shows thrown in.

But as time grew on people started to drift away and the core group of us who

turned up every week used to sort out Club newsletters and deliver them for a

little extra pocket money!! However this group grew older and with fewer young

people coming into the Club the group was forced to close.

By this time I had now started at Castle View and met Marc, another IYC cadet,

who became a very good friend (and still is). Within a short while we both started

going sailing after school (tide allowing) and joined the Saturday work parties

under the watchful eyes of Mike Dickinson, Barrie White, Dave Lane, Perry

Morris and many others, mainly getting in the way but also learning a lot about

life in the process.

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Only on one occasion were we both told off for going sailing when we’d left

notes to our parents saying we were going sailing when the wind was a little

stronger than we thought. As it was we were found by my mother scrubbing our

dinghies on the slipway and having a great time!! I know my mother remembers

this occasion, as I’ve been told about it a “few” times since.

During this time I was still going to Sea Scouts and not getting much sailing in.

Once the leaders knew I could sail and row better than they could I was sidelined

and left to my own devices, leading up to the inevitable of me leaving and

carrying on my sailing on my terms (or rather my parents terms) and gradually I

grew out of my little Barrow Boat (named as it had a wheel under the transom so

could be launched without a trolley by one person) and bought a “new” Sea

Ranger 12, I say new but when bought she was already 35 years old.

It wasn’t long after this that the cadet’s folded again and by the time the next

group was started I was too old to join, and was busy with GCSE’s and college.

So I carried on sailing with my parents and working on the work parties,

becoming one of the drivers and joining the Moorings Committee once I was 18.

Now I’m 24 and helping to run the current cadet group, which has a strong

membership of 20+ cadets about half of which have their own dinghies. A lot of

progress has been made in the past few months we’ve been running the cadets

and the members really enjoy the socialising and activities done.

It is really nice for me as

someone who has been through

numerous cadet groups at the

Club to see one take off with

such a strong group of cadets

and even better to have the

chance to make a difference by

helping. It has to be

remembered that these young

people are the future of our

Club and we should be doing

everything possible to

encourage them into yachting and doing it as safely as possible.

Let’s hope we can look forward to another seventy-plus years of the Island Yacht

Club

Alex Ardley

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