With a new Commodore at the helm, Annandale Sailing Club members are preparing to launch their 2025 season on Lochmaben’s Castle Loch.
Trudie Mitchell, from Dumfries, is Commodore for the next two years and hopes to see the club grow and thrive.
“Everyone is welcome here and I want more people to join and feel it’s their club, it belongs to them,” she says.
Trudie started sailing as a teenager at Scammonden Reservoir in West Yorkshire but stopped while raising her young family.
Having moved to Dumfries & Galloway in 2001, and after her children were grown up, she decided to try again, paying a visit to Annandale Sailing Club in 2016.
“I wanted to challenge myself and have a go at sailing again. For my 40th birthday, my husband bought me a Pico [small, single-handed dinghy] called Honey Bee and I loved getting out on the water again.
“For me it was about freedom, me time. The club was really friendly and welcoming.”
It wasn’t long before Trudie, a retired auxiliary nurse, traded her Pico for a Laser and joined the racing fleet. She won the club championship in 2018 and 2021.
She also joined the management committee to get more involved and created the role of Welfare Officer to cope with the increased legislation the club had to deal with.
She became Vice Commodore in 2024 and stepped up to the top job at last December’s AGM.
Also last year, despite never having gone through an RYA training course of any kind, Trudie underwent instructor training on the Forth and became a qualified dinghy instructor.
“I felt the club would benefit from having another instructor to help with training courses and getting more people on the water,” she says.
Annandale Sailing Club offers racing and training opportunities from March to October. This year’s Open Day is on Sunday, April 27.
For more information find Annandale Sailing Club on Facebook or visit www.annandalesailingclub.myclubhouse.co.uk
