HISTORY OF SOUTHPORT MODEL BOAT CLUB

Southport Model Boat Club was started 40 years ago in 1983. at the time I (Kevin Saker) was a member of Crosby Model Boat Club. Back then, every year there was a scale model boat competition held on the marine lake organised by the Crosby Model Boat Club

The funds raised from this event were donated to the RNLI. I was fortunate to win best warship and this was featured in the Southport Visiter, this was a good opportunity to ask if anyone was interested in forming a model boat club in Southport. Just four people contacted me at the time, and we agreed to meet for a sail on a Sunday morning on the Marine Lake.

The first five members were 

Bert Smith (pictured with his large model of Oriana) Jim Griffin Richard Moyka went on to win a gold medal at the Model Engineering Exhibition with his amazing Russian warship (pictured in the first picture of this page with Kevin Saker. 


As the club membership grew we eventually moved to the old boating lake in front of the old open air sea bathing lake and over the coming years we held many regatta's at that lake. Sadly the council decided to demolish the open air pool and boating lake , but thankfully they built a new lake at the current location on Rotten Row 

Here we are 40 years later and going from strength to strength and a membership of 100.

We meet on Sunday and Wednesday mornings, we also enjoy the occasional night sails when weather permits.

We have a good sailing pond with a members car park and toilet facility, We share the area with Southport Model Engineers Club, they have an existing clubhouse and raise track loop for steam engines. As part of the new development a new track bed has been added alongside the pond and looping around the head of the area and returning to their clubhouse.

The pond is open for public use as the club felt that it should be available to everyone, not just SMBC members. We do ask any visitors to use our frequency peg system for everyone's safety, if you intend to use steam power you will need a current boiler test certificate (we can help with this) Electric and Steam models are operated , however IC engines are not permitted. The club has had plenty of youngsters with toy yachts sailing amongst our boats to the delight of one and all, if the truth were told then many dedicated scale modellers would be free sailing little yachts just like when they were lad's.

Southport Model Boat Club is a grouping of many ages with one aim - to ENJOY sailing model boats.

If you are a dyed in the wool yatch racer , you are very welcome to join us , but please don't expect everyone to race you, its much more likely  you will be offered a cup of tea and a sail of somebody else's boat than a race.

RELAX, UNWIND, FEEL THE BREEZE  and most of all enjoy your hobby with others of the same mind set.