As the weather and water start to warm up we are seeing sailors get back into the sailing scene.

Already in only the first week of the season after the school holidays, a great turnout on the Bravo course with 18 Optimist and Open Skiff sailors battling out the tricky conditions.

Training resumed in a tapered approach after winter and numbers are increasing after only two weeks of the season.  The below chart shows squad training numbers. “Sailors” is the number of sailors in the squads, and “Sessions” are the number of sessions those sailors have participated in each month (October data only up to 16 October).

Youth numbers are down and will be for a few more weeks whilst study and exams take precedence.

Courses

We also have 60 people currently enrolled in courses running now or starting soon which is promising for this time of the year.

Keelboat Training

On the Keelboat side of things, over winter we offered Keelboat Instructor training to members and I’m pleased to say that David Hanham, Paul Jackson, and Cherie Salvucci, who undertook the training have been doing a great job with our current courses

We have a lot of people wanting to take up sailing in various ways and due to Covid have less coaches available than normal, so we really need the members to help to become trainers.

If you are an experienced keelboat sailor who enjoys teaching people, please get in touch with me at

F15 Training

Flying 15’s have had a great turnout to the training sessions with 29 of their 44 sailors making the most of the training on offer.

Nick Jerwood and Grant Alderson have run training.  As in the S80 fleet, it’s great to see members giving some time to help others in their fleet grow in skills and numbers.

Nick focused his session on time and distance in starting preparation and mark rounding’s.

Below are a few images from the racing that hopefully show some of the lessons learned.

Grant ran an onshore tuning session and then race sessions to consolidate the concepts. Key points include:

  • Twist in the mainsail. Make sure the top telltale is not stalling more than 50%. Keep boom as central as possible. 10 knots and under just main sheet and no vang.
  • Careful of jib sheet tension. Very easy to oversheet the new style jibs!
  • Clear air off the start line is a priority! Keep a clear lane if possible. If not look for options to tack out sooner rather than later. Be careful not to line up too early.
  • Select “making gybe” downwind. In other words, the one that is going to point you at the bottom marks.
  • Slower tacks are better than fast tacks, especially in lighter conditions.

Sunday also saw the Vipers invited on Alpha course for some course racing and ILCA (Lasers) having some really close battles between Standard and Radial rigs