The AYRS is a club for all who are fascinated by the technical side of boating. Our members have been at the forefront of developments in high performance sailing but the society is not just about hydrofoils and speed records – improvements in cruising comfort, seaworthiness, boat maintenance and amateur boat building are all within our remit.
Meetings – The AYRS holds both ‘face to face’ meetings and increasingly on-line meetings – currently by Zoom. AYRS meetings are open to all, so you don’t actually have to join the AYRS to come to our meetings but we would hope that those who attend on a regular basis might consider joining to help with covering the inevitable fixed costs of running the Society. On-line meetings are becoming an increasingly important part of AYRS activity but we have no plans to abandon our face-to-face meetings. We expect to hold our usual gatherings in Surrey UK during November 2021 and January 2022, covid permitting. We also have an active local group which holds regular meetings in the NW of the UK and we hope to start local groups in other areas and perhaps also hold some on-the-water gatherings during the sailing season.
This link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukj00cS6zIs is a recording of a sample AYRS Zoom meeting held last year in which Bernard Rhodes gave a presentation about building a 22foot trimaran back in the 1960s then sailing this boat from the UK to New Zealand where he settled and lives to this day. The second part of this presentation is at: https://youtu.be/RUNYVSlLvMk Our on-line meetings to date have usually followed this format of a presentation followed by questions, but we will also experiment with less formal meetings, more an online-version of a meeting in the yacht club bar rather than the lecture room.
Facebook – the AYRS has a Facebook Group – search on Facebook for ‘Amateur Yacht Research Society’ or go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/417946152850707 There are some interesting recent posts here about developing hydrofoil boards for kite surfing and ‘wingsailing’ – the later being a new branch of sailing that is taking off fast at the moment.
Journal – The AYRS publishes a journal ‘Catalyst’ whenever our Editor can gather sufficient material, in recent years this has worked out at two editions each year – if members would like more frequent Catalysts they had better get busy with their keyboards! In between Catalysts we email regular notices about upcoming meetings to our members who have given us email addresses and we post any important announcements to members for whom we do not have an email address.
Administration – Over the past 12 months the AYRS has gained what is pretty well an all new committee with a new Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Editor amongst others. We are still sorting ourselves out after all this change, but we hope to now move forward with new vision and enthusiasm.
Subscription – An annual subscription to the AYRS is just £10 pa for ‘electronic membership’, or £20 if you prefer to receive our published material by post rather than through the internet. You can join on-line or by sending a cheque to our Treasurer – details here – https://www.ayrs.org/joinayrs/ If you have any problems with joining the AYRS contact treasurer@ayrs.org.