Royal opening of sailing club’s new facilities

It was all plain sailing as HRH Princess Anne officially opened new facilities at Scaling Dam. The royal visitor chatted to members at Scaling Dam Sailing Club and had a look around the club before doing the honours and opening the new training room. Princess Anne herself has a keen interest in sailing and is the patron of Sailability - an organisation which helps disabled people take part in the sport. Club commodore, Mark Lewis told the Gazette: “She was really interested in what the young people had done and we have three generations that are members who she met. She is involved with the disability scheme and was interested to meet those people and was very much interested in what boats our champions have been sailing. “We are one of the smaller clubs so it was a coup for us to get here so we are delighted she came.”