Tick! Another successful Junior Sailing Course

Published 21:50 on 9 Jun 2021

The sun shone on Stoke Gabriel for our half term Junior Sailing course.... Those participating all learnt new sailing skills progressing to RYA Stages 1-4 and seemed to have a superb time. A big thank you out to the organisers and instructors without whom JSA would not have been the success it was - you know who you are!

Chris Moore, Commodore

Thank you also to Sonny, one of our participants, who wrote this excellent writeup of his week at Junior Sailing:

My week on the level 4 sailing course with SGBA.

The first day got off to a great start - I went to the clubhouse to collect all my kit for the week and immediately saw some friends that I have sailed with before at the course. The main instructor (Will) did a brief and created this chant where he shouted 'SAFE' then everyone would hug their life jackets then he would shout 'FUN' everyone else would repeat back with 'sailing!' finally he would shout 'SAILING!' and everyone would cheer. It was a great way of getting everyone to know the three essentials and to get them excited about the coming day.

After the big briefing we would all meet with our group instructors and they would then take us through what we would be doing that day. We would spend 2-3 hours on the water doing various fun activities such as races and practising the technical bits. It was really helpful because if there was something you weren't sure on or you had something you could improve on your instructor would do a quick drill to sort it out. Then we would come in for some cake that the onshore helpers had laid out and we drank loads of water to keep hydrated. We went back out again for another 2-3 hours to do some more sailing.

I found my instructor's advice really helpful and I felt like I improved a lot over the week. My instructor (Tom) was really nice and made everything we did fun and gave us all lots of helpful tips to improve.

On the last day we had a fun day and we did loads of exciting games, both onshore and out on the water with all the groups. It was really nice because I got to sail with some of my friends in the other groups. Some of the activities we did were: a tug of war, you would get a piece of the boat after going round a marker in the water and first one to get a complete boat wins and many more. After all the activities we had a prize giving and all the people that won prizes, like most improved, went up and got a treat of some sort. At the end we all got t-shirts that had a slogan on the back - the one that was chosen this time was 'pirate in training.'

Overall, I really really enjoyed the week and it was so fun socialising with all different age groups and other sailors and making new friends that I will stay in touch with. All the staff were really nice and supportive all through the week and set really fun things to do. Everyone always looked like they were having an amazing time and there were smiles all around at every point. I am already looking forward to next year!

We will be running two more Junior Sailing weeks this summer, and look forward to similar success - and hopefully similar weather - for those!

Last updated 21:41 on 27 May 2024