Youth on Boats Update - August 2021

The young sailors of the Club have been busy this month, starting with the Ringstead BBQ. Two of our more experienced YOBs sailed themselves over to the festivities whilst the remainder jumped onto the cruisers as crew. It was a fabulous day and everyone looks forward to the event next year when we hope to have more YOBs sailing over in the Feva fleet.

In spite of the strong winds, we have continued to meet weekly but rather than sailing in the Bay we have improved our skills in the yard with training given on gybing/tacking, knot work and RYA theory. Team building games with tyre racing across the yard was a great success with plenty of innovative interpretations on how to win (ie cheat) coming to the fore.

We have also arranged extra “race training” sessions to ensure that when Ruby, Saffron and Elliot depart for university in September, the YOBs continue the tradition of participating in Club races. We are pleased to see that we have a good number of enthusiastic and able YOBs ready to race for glory!

Simon, Peter and Patrick joined us one evening and took a number of our YOBs out on their Squibs. Again, hugely successful and much appreciated by all the lucky youngsters who had the chance to sail a Squib.

The YOBs would not have been able to meet as frequently as they have this Summer without the support of the Club and in particular, Cliff, Euan, Steve, Phil, Paul, Celia and Glen. Ruby, Saffron and Elliot have been absolutely fantastic at teaching the youngsters to learn to sail, and acting as exemplar role models; we will miss them very much.

Submitted on 27th August 2021