Monday 8 September 2025
AGM & film of the 100 year old Bessie Ellen, West Country trading ketch
…with reminisces from BSC members who sailed on her to the Azores in 2012. She is based at Gloucester Docks but offers sailing holidays, wildlife watching and traditional sailing experience trips around the remoter parts of the UK and in Europe.
Monday 13 October 2025
GUEST SPEAKER – Commander Nick Tobin. The Falklands War: Memoir of Captain Nick Tobin whose ship, HMS ANTELOPE,was tragically sunk, but his other battle had only just started
Nick will recount the ups and downs of his ship’s unique involvement in the campaign to recover the Falkland Islands in 1982 and what happened to him and his ship’s company after their return to England when an inquiry was set up to investigate the loss of his command. Nicknamed the ‘Ping Pong Ball’ by the Captain of HMS HERMES, the Task Force’s Flag Ship, HMS ANTELOPE assumed command of a large group of amphibious ships for most of their passage to southern latitudes. Additionally, Nick was responsible for the safe transportation to Ascension Island of not only 180 Argentine Prisoners of War captured when British forces retook South Georgia but also the British Antarctic Survey Team, two female wildlife documentary film makers from Anglia TV and two South Georgian pintail ducks!
Monday 10 November 2025
GUEST SPEAKER – Frank Bond. ‘Donald Campbell and Bluebird on Lake Coniston’.
Donald Campbell was every school boy’s hero in an age when we were allowed heroes. He had followed his father’s quest for speed on land and water, all for his patriotic love of his country. In early 1967 he was killed in a very public accident on lake Coniston. This talk is split into three parts: A thirty-minute film of the record breaker concludes with this accident; the reasons for the catastrophic incident are diagnosed from the official enquiry; finally, a short film follows the recovery of Bluebird, and its test at speed in 2017 on a lake in Scotland, before a controversy developed over the future of Bluebird. This is a 60-minute presentation.
Monday 8 December 2025
GUEST SPEAKER – Paul Barnett. ‘Titanic effort – the story of RMS Carpathia and her dash to save the stricken liner’.
The lesser-known story of the heroic efforts to reach the sinking Titanic. On April 15, 1912, after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage, the Carpathia arrived approximately two hours later and rescued 705 survivors from the lifeboats. This illustrated presentation takes us through the drama and revealing facts of the disaster.
Monday 12 January 2026
GUEST SPEAKER – Tony Conder. ‘Sailing for a living’
This fascinating detailed presentation gives a real historical insight into the life and hard work crews put in on the old trading vessels working out of Gloucester. The vessels themselves are illustrated by size and type being able to work the Severn Estuary, Atlantic and Baltic areas.
Monday 10 February 2025
ANNUAL DINNER, Kingsdown Golf Club
Monday 9 March 2026
GUEST SPEAKER – Sqn. Ldr. Tristan Le Lohé: RAF Exchange Tour with US Navy Electronic Attack Squadron 129 (and how to take off and land on a boat!)
An illustrated overview of a recent 40-month exchange programme with the US Navy to teach air combat techniques & tactics with the US Electronic Attack Squadron which trains aircrew and sailors to conduct electronic warfare with the EA-18G Growler, one of the world’s most advanced jets – a remarkable demonstration that outside of recent politics, the ‘special relationship’ in the military is still very real. During this time Tris became one of only a handful of RAF ‘Top Gun’ pilots to also qualify as a naval aviator and earn his ‘Wings of Gold’ through the US Navy carrier qualification in around 60 years of transatlantic exchange programmes. The achievement puts him among an elite group of aviators with cross-platform expertise spanning land and sea operations and makes him one of the very few RAF pilots to experience catapult launches and arrested landings.
Friday 17 April 2026
Social/ AwayDay visit to HMS Warrior, Portsmouth
Details to be announced
May/June 2026
MEMBER’S RALLY – details tba