 The club was originally formed in September 1970 by a
group of local enthusiasts who attended a sailing course at Glossop Centre. They
approached Manchester Corporation with a view to sailing on one of the reservoirs in the
Longdendale valley.
Sailing began in a small way, using boats made
available by Derbyshire Education through the evening course and by accepting invitations
from local clubs to try out boats owned by their members. Application was made to use
Torside Reservoir which appeared to offer the best opportunities for development. However,
Torside Reservoir could not be made immediately available and in the Autumn of 1972,
Manchester Corporation offered the club the use of either Vale House Reservoir or Bottoms
Reservoir as a temporary home. The 30 members of GDSC reviewed their options and settled
upon Bottoms as their first home.
On Saturday, February 17th 1973 the first working
party commenced. By June 1973 the members had installed the necessary facilities. This
included access roads, dinghy park, slipway, car park, main drainage, septic tank,
settling tank, water main . |
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and clubhouse (the clubhouse having been dismantled at
its original site at Denton and transported to Bottoms for re-assembly). Several tons of
hard-core and gravel were moved by hand and sailing started on June 17th
By July 1978 the members were pushing NWWA for
permission to try sailing at Torside although the AGM of that year felt that the costs
involved in moving were prohibitive. The AGM in 1981 finally voted upon the matter and a
Committee was established to manage the move. The first full sailing day at Torside was on
15th of August 1982 and continued in an ad-hoc fashion during the 1983 sailing season, in
parallel with the building of a new clubhouse. The club began full sailing at Torside on
April 1st 1984, 11 years after its formation.
In the 14 years sailing at Torside the club has
continuously improved its facilities through the efforts of its members and with
assistance from the Foundation for Sport and Arts. In the Spring of 1995 we laid the
foundations of the new Race Control and Boatstore which we completed by the end of the
year. This has allowed us to change from fibreglass Dory safety boats to the modern Rigid
Inflatable Boats (RIBs) that we have purchased. Our training fleet of GP14s and the
Optimists for club Junior members have been re-furbished and we have
upgraded our shower facilities.
Last year we widened our
slipway to promote easy launching for less experienced sailors and
purchased Toppers and Windsurfers for our Junior Fleet. As the
we enter the new Millennium, our aims are to build our Junior
section by providing more Junior fleet boats and working with local schools to promote
the sport, to improve our club facilities for sailors and visitors and to be the venue of
choice for class Open events. |
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