Ricky: The Story of A Sailing Club

Contents

Chapter I - How it started

Racing Courses - Aquadrome & Troy Lake

Original Programme for first year

Chapter II - Years of turmoil

Chapter III - The end of the beginning

Chapter IV - The new lake

Chapter V - Moving-time again

Chapter VI - Our own water

Chapter VII - Make and Mend

Officers of the Club

Committee Members

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

How it started

On Sunday, 19th January, 1930, nine people met at Rickmansworth and agreed to form the Rickmansworth Sailing Club, for good measure they also elected a further three members. From this original dozen the club has grown to a membership of 417, owning 124 dinghies. A fact, that would have as much delighted these early pioneers as it would have amazed them, given the uneasy early years of the club.

The story of the Rickmansworth Sailing Club divides more or less equally into two very different periods. The first half being spent at Bury Lake (the Aquadrome) where it was a club within a club, the second half at Troy Lake, which it at first leased and now owns.

The Aquadrome (as Troy Lake) was a worked out gravel pit. The gravel was moved by barge, via Stocker's Lake which was then at the same level, to the Grand Union Canal. Traces of the entrance from the canal can still be seen from the towpath down stream from Stocker's Lock. Wembley Stadium is supposed to have been built with Bury Lake gravel. Right to the time the club left the area, club working parties vainly lavished their skills in attempting to remove a sunken barge in the reeds behind the boathouse. A Rickmansworth working party has a long tradition, and as will be observed, is never easily put off! The area has now been reclaimed as a boat park, possibly a simpler solution as one suspects that the barge is still underneath. ... ...