A new jetty has been built in a boathouse accessed directly from the lake for Llangorse Sailing Club’s powered safety boats.

The project was made possible thanks to a SportWales grant supporting clubs whose sites or facilities were damaged by storms Bert and Darragh last year.

The jetty was completed to a high standard, with voluntary expertise from the club’s Chief Instructor Richard McCulloch and Instructor John Farmer, who engineered and built the structure during the summer when water levels were at their lowest.

Commodore, John Mason says: “As an RYA Recognised Training Centre (RTC), it’s vital for us to have powered safety boats to support training in sailing. The club also deploys safety boats to support racing and recreational sailing every Sunday and other nominated days during the sailing season. Our ‘wet-shed’ enables two safety boats to be stored floating and ready-for-action - reducing time to launch them by more than half.”

Last year’s storms had a dramatic impact on Llangorse Lake - not least to the sailing club’s site and facilities.

“We’re used to some flooding – the clubhouse is built on an artificial elevation, and we have recently introduced water-erosion defences,” added Mr Mason.

“However, the lake margins, jetties and our launching areas suffer the greatest impact. In the storms, our jetty in the boathouse was completely lifted and detatched from its supports. The solution has been to build a new flood-resistant jetty using stronger and more long-lasting materials. Our new boathouse jetty ensures the sustainability of the club for the future.

“We are very grateful to SportWales for supporting us with this project – and we are very grateful to Richard and John for their expertise and commitment – dramatically reducing the project cost. This year we are enjoying new demand for sailing at Llangorse. This project enables us to meet that demand!”