| Overlord - OffShore Cruising Club |
The Offshore Cruising Club (OCC) currently comprises 160 members from a wide range of backgrounds and whilst the emphasis is upon exciting sailing on Overlord, in a safe and well planned manner, the club is predominantly a group of like-minded people with a passion for sailing. |
From our base in Gosport, our highly experienced club skippers take crews of up to 9 members on various sailing and training adventures around the Solent from April to June and September to November. During the Summer months, Overlord embarks upon a cruising programme which varies each year, depending on where our members wish to sail. In recent years members have enjoyed sailing Overlord in the Baltic, Scotland, South-West Ireland and France. See our cruising programme for full details of previous year’s destinations.
The OCC runs it’s own training programme to ensure that those members who wish to, can develop a range of skills and knowledge from competent crew up to skipper. Whilst this is encouraged it is by no means compulsory, and we have many members who just enjoy being on the water in a relaxed and social environment.
The club is run by a board of volunteers, voted for by members at an AGM held in the Spring of each year.
ABOUT OVERLORD
Overlord is a 58 foot Bermudan sloop built in 1936 by Abeking & Rasmussen of Lemverder for the Luftwaffe. She was part of a fleet of 100 sq.metre, 50 sq.metre and 30 sq.metre yachts used at Lemverder for Officer training and in particular, for training Luftwaffe navigators.
In 1945, Pelikan, as Overlord was then named, plus many more yachts in the fleet were taken as prizes of war at Kiel and later included in the reparations agreement. Many of the yachts were distributed amongst the British Services and Pelikan, was used by the Royal Engineers at Chatham who re-named her Overlord. Between 1946 and 1955 she had a distinguished Royal Ocean Racing Club record with the Sapper Yacht Club.
In 1961 she was bought by Tony Venables, a 33 year old retired Army Officer who had been her skipper whilst serving in the Royal Army Service Corps. Tony, who was planning to sell her after two years, to recoup his capital and the running costs, was persuaded to retain her and formed the Overlord Sailing Club, now the Offshore Cruising Club.