WEYMOUTH Sailing Club (WSC) is celebrating its centenary anniversary in 2013 with a host of exciting events lined up to mark the 100-year milestone.

One of the biggest events of the summer is the annual race to Cherbourg, which is taking place today.

Anyone up early this morning and looking out to sea could not have missed the spectacle of more than 30 boats heading over the horizon to France.

In honour of the centenary, WSC has sent a large flotilla of local boats across the Channel, where the festivities will be doubled as our friends at Yacht Club de Cherbourg (YCC) are celebrating their 75th anniversary year.

It was a 5.30am start this morning for those who chose to take part and the race to Cherbourg will cover more than 64 miles. The faster boats are expected to complete the journey in eight hours, although it is likely to take 12 hours for everyone else.

Tours of the town and the harbour plus wine tasting are planned for Saturday with a barbecue and more wine organised by the hosts YCC in the evening.

Unfortunately WSC commo-dore Kathy Claydon will not be present as she is competing in the BNY Mellon Challenge race from Cowes, Isle of Wight to Cascais in Portugal.

Racing in the double-handed section on her 37ft boat Arcsine, Claydon, who has two grown up sons and has been a proud bus pass holder for a couple of years now, has teamed up with one of her protégés – a young Port-uguese lad Filipe.

They left Cowes last Friday and after battling 40-plus knot winds, hail, electrical storms, mountainous seas and unseasonally cold weather, they arrived at La Trinite in Brittany 72 hours later grabbing a second place, cold, wet and exhausted.

They start the second leg to Cascais on Thursday. You can track her progress via the Junior Offshore Group (JOG) website at yb.tl/bny2013 Whilst Claydon battles North Atlantic seas, two other club members Richard and Jo Way are making their way south and eventually west in their 33ft boat Owaissa.

Purchased 30 years ago, they planned to sail to the Caribbean but along popped children Tom and Sally, so they put off their plans until now.

They set sail from the National Sailing Academy on Portland last Saturday, heading for Dartmouth, and intend to hop along the south coast before heading south to the Canaries then heading west to the Caribbean. They plan to be drinking coconut milk sometime in November.

* The WSC Centenary weekend will be held from September 9 to 11, encompassing tender racing across the harbour, a live BBC broadcast from the club with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, a centenary regatta, a sail past, crabbing competition and festivities.

The club will be producing branded t-shirts, mugs, boom stickers and centenary pennants in honour of the occasion.