I started my training membership in October, starting with crewing. Grant has been incredibly supportive and encouraging from the start, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the training sessions as well as ’throwing’ myself in the deep end joining the racing crew on Saturdays – my first (ever) experience racing was on Matador. It was a fairly windy day – up to 25 knots (I believe), so it was a thrilling experience, I was totally soaked and wind swept.

If you have recently joined, I encourage you to join the racing on Wednesdays and Saturdays, it’s a great way to ‘learn on the job’. The technical side of sailing is more challenging then I realised and I have a long way to go before I will feel confident. No matter your experience level, keep it up and even if you have to repeat the sessions a few times, it’s not a race – it can take years of practice and the only way to gain that experience is to get out there as much as you can!

Images here are of the training day for the Helming Course – four students and spoilt by 2 instructors.

Written by Trudy Kelder, training member

Photos provided by Trudy Kelder