Tollesbury Sailing Club
Founded 1936 · 90th anniversary 2026
Tollesbury Sailing Club was founded in 1936 at a meeting in Jim Chaney’s electrical shop on the High Street – forty members, almost all professionally connected with the water. Three of them had already erected a starting pole at Rickett’s Hard before the club formally existed, so keen were they to get racing. The club’s badge is a stag’s head, donated by the Countess de la Chapelle along with other furniture for the original clubhouse – an old paint shop and boatshed on the edge of the Little Marsh.
The driving force behind the club’s founding was Major Kendrick McMullen, who had settled in the village after the First World War and lived for much of the year aboard his Fife-built ketch ‘Nan’. He designed his own racing dinghies from laths and hardboard – critics called them “paper boats” – and they proved unbeatable on the Blackwater and Crouch. He also designed and built his own motor car, known in the village simply as ‘the Beatle.’
The club’s first notable patrons included Captain William Drake Frost in his yacht ‘Agatha’, and Captain George Brand. T.O.M. Sopwith – later Sir Thomas, of Spitfire fame – donated a silver trophy that the club still holds.
Today the club is primarily a dinghy club, sailing Lasers, GP14s, Toppers and Optimists on the sheltered waters of Woodrolfe Creek and out onto the Blackwater. It describes itself as the friendliest club on the East Coast, and has an active cadet programme sailing most Saturdays through the season.
The club also hosts some of the village’s most enduring traditions. The Gooseberry Pie competition on St Peter’s Day is one of the oldest fixtures on the Tollesbury calendar – the President and Vice President judge the entries, and all the pies are eaten after the prize giving. The annual Beer Festival in September brings 20 ales and visitors from across Essex; in 2026 it falls on 11–13 September – the same weekend as the Tollesbury Arts Trail launch.
Tollesbury’s four sailing communities:
Tollesbury has more active sailing associations per head of population than almost anywhere on the East Coast:
* Tollesbury Sailing Club – dinghies and cruisers, racing and cadet training, next to the Sail Lofts on Woodrolfe Road.
* The Mud Club – cruising yachts on the traditional mud berths at the Saltings, sailing most weekends through the season.
* Tollesbury Cruising Club (the Marina) – larger yachts in the marina at Woodrolfe, with the Harbour View restaurant alongside. The marina operates as a commercial business; the cruising club itself is no longer an active sailing organisation.
* FACT at the Lightship – RYA-accredited training for dinghies and powerboats. No larger-boat courses such as Day Skipper currently offered.
And even the rear commodore of the national LGBT sailing association organises rallies from Tollesbury.