Winter Activity at Blackwater Sailing Club
by Christine Brown 20 Dec 2021 11:48 GMT
Adult Mentoring at Blackwater Sailing Club © Belinda Sturge
With the ongoing travel restrictions that we have all faced over the last couple of years many people have turned to more local activities. We have the beautiful Blackwater estuary on our doorstep and sailing has become a lot more popular.
BSC has welcomed many new members during this time with a wide range of sailing knowledge. Some new cruiser owners have joined us. Maybe they were previously sailing far and wide but are now happy to cruise the wonderful East coast, discovering what joys it has to offer.
The dinghy sailing contingent includes complete beginners and improvers, to experienced sailors and others simply wanting to refresh their skills. With this in mind BSC has developed an Adult Mentoring Scheme aimed at beginners and improvers and this has proved to be extremely popular with some of our newer members. These sessions take place on our lake on a Friday afternoon and the next cohort will start at the end of January.
The candidates enrolling on the Mentoring Scheme have enjoyed progression from not knowing how to correctly park the boat head to wind before rigging through to competently gybing under control in variable conditions. The other bonus they've enjoyed is learning all the different facets of our club... being a club for members run by members..there are far more facilities to enjoy that they didn't really know were accessible... such as the members workshop and volunteering for safety boat crewing. Its also a good opportunity to meet other newer sailors and form new friendships. Some have already teamed up and brought double handed boats between them.
The Scheme is run by RYA qualified instructors and the syllabus follows 12 weekly topics from the RYA G4 National Sailing Scheme (RYA1&2) Where RYA 1 'knows about' and RYA 2 'can demonstrate proficiency in...'. Each week varies according to candidates' needs.
Candidates can partake in as many of the mentoring sessions as they wish with or without sitting the full RYA 1& 2 course.
The hardy club racers continue throughout the season; despite the winter fog some people were on the river for a social sail in December, these included Father Christmas, The Grinch, some bah humbugs, elves and fairies. Afterwards there was an outdoor party on the patio with socially distanced Father Christmas handing out presents from his grotto, eagerly watched by a four legged Christmas pudding.
Its been a good year at BSC, despite all the restrictions we have encountered along the way we have enjoyed good sailing when allowed and kept our members safe. If you would like to visit the club with a view to joining then please contact our membership secretary, email .
For more details see blackwatersailingclub.org.uk