EAST VI Cruising 2021 update

Dear Crew and Skippers,

As you are very much aware 2020 threw us a COVID-19 virus, which gave EAST insurmountable problems of service delivery and therefore all disabled sailing in yacht cruising and keel boats had to be cancelled.

The Cruising Committee have been working hard over the winter months keeping a watchful eye on the evolving pandemic situation and have tried to make plans for 2021 accordingly.

The goalposts have been forever moving with new strains of the virus becoming evident and new lockdowns and restrictions being put upon us. We have therefore been attempting to pencil in dates for cruising activities, as well as protecting everybody by producing a risk assessment document.

We had initially set aside dates for two cruises in May 2021 and the late Summer cruise for early September 2021 but due to the current strain of the virus being prolific and the fact that the vaccination programme is still uncertain for many of us, the committee have decided to move the proposed May dates into June in order to try and provide as big a window as possible for our country to get over this COVID spike and for vaccinations to take place.

We have therefore agreed the amended dates as follows:-

Taster Cruise               June 4th – June 6th 2021 (2 nights)

Three day Cruise         June 25th – June 28th 2021 (3 nights)

Late Summer Cruise   September 3rd – September 10th (8 nights) – unchanged.

All of these three cruises will be subject to Government instruction and restrictions, if applicable, which potentially means cancellation.

Additionally, the Cruising Committee and the Trustees have agreed that no place can be offered to any crew member or skipper that has not received at least one COVID-19 vaccination and can evidence it by production of their vaccination record. Your vaccination should not have been received less than 21 days prior to the commencement of the cruise, so that we can ensure that immunity has been built up.

This has been put in place to not only protect yourself but to also protect others, as on cruising trips we are all living in such close proximity on a boat. This may mean of course that some of us will be unable to join a cruise. For this we are very sorry but EAST feels that this requirement should not and cannot be relaxed for public health reasons.

In the meantime, we wish everybody well and hope that we can get through this pandemic as quickly and safely as possible.

Simon Daws

Chair EAST VI Sailing Committee

January 16th 2021