Andrew Cassell Foundation

04/10/2026

What a fantastic rewarding day! Starting in the fog lightly getting to know 3 new island participants and introductions to the team. Learning about rigging, craning and safety equipment. Followed by a chilled test sail in some super light breeze.

The smiles and buzzing vibe around after was fantastic what’s probably the last of the warm sunshine with some very keen new individuals to bring on.

It’s days like today that make you feel honoured to do something no one else does and that’s giving people the freedom and true inclusion in an equal environment.

31/08/2026

A fantastic event showing true Corinthian Spirit!

31/08/2026

Still in shock at yesterdays racing with the CCYC for the Andy Cassell Coronation Regatta. A fantastic turn out and fun with friends. The CCYC was out force, but for me (Matt) it was all about watching the first beat. The expectation that the ff15’s who started with us would disappear upwind leaving our novice teams behind. But they decided to head off and battle on the brambles bank whilst our Sonar went out to keep out of the mix, calmly Lee-bowed by the tide and frankly left them for dead. 🤪

We did call our teams in slightly early as the breeze picked up, and sea state turn, 1 minor slip up and followed our own guidance of knowing when it’s time that the crews have clearly had enough.

But we honestly could not be more proud of them.

Thank you again to all the ACF Participants, ACF Volunteers, CCYC Volunteers and Andy’s family for making it happen.

A fantastic way to end the summer even if it did mean torrential rain 🌧️ ☔️

Also a huge well done to the ACF Spare Part team for their consistency and pulling off the 3rd place Sonar. Which had onboard, Rory and Laura from our ACF Scotland team and Lizzie’s first time sailing with them from our ACF Cowes Team.
Huge thanks to the support of the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club and RYA Scotland for enabling this to happen. Also whilst another Scottish Sailor Zak was doing his Dinghy level 1 to up-skill himself. 😊

26/08/2026

Fantastic brief read about Rory’s sailing who post this did a fantastic job in Cowes Week.

Decked out in a bright red GBR fleece, Rory McKinna looks every inch the world-class athlete that he is. For Rory McKinna visit
www.ayrshiremagazine.com/rory-mckinna/

23/08/2026

Great to see Bex keeping up their time on the water, getting in some training ready for Worlds in October.

09/08/2026

Thanks so much to Clive Blount for catching these personal pictures of some of the team over the week. The tiredness, team work, the process including me having to get dressed after slipping lines to prevent over heating while launching 4 plus boats then race and a yet still participants smiling! It says it all.

Thank you so much for capturing.

And thank you to the entire amazing ACF and CCYC team’s and supporters.

Cowes Week

08/08/2026

Huge thank you to the team who helped with the sticker removal and wash down today and to the sailing teams who did such a fine job last night on both the pack up of the ACF Stand and the Sonar’s it made a nice easy light job today.

The team have finally all departed for their homes, now for just a bit more and then a good rest before the big write up. 🤐

Thank you again everyone for all of your help.

08/08/2026

And….. it’s over….. what a short tuffet race to end on. They put us on the start line with 20 ff15’s which was like trying to walk through a bat cave 🤪 The sonar tacking very differently to them, they kept pinning us onto the beach. When we would take more space. Making it extremely difficult to get through without ending up on top of one of them.

Then throw in disabled individuals, and what can we say? Nothing but how extremely proud of every single one of them we are.

For many of our team it will take a week or more to recover physically from the week of hard physical sailing but they have all left with smiles. Pushing themselves into limits that they didn’t believe they could.

Now to focus on the pack up and get planning for the future (which will be done very slowly😴).

So proud of them all in a 23 boat fleet finishing;
ACF Dolphin - 4th
ACF Limbitless- 10th
ACF Spare Part - 11th
ACF Pisces - 20th

This year’s racing was the most fun and competitive racing we have had in years. Well done to everyone in our fleet and Cowes Week