Entry Level Racing

I'm just concluding Tonight, what's been an unexpectedly successful 'introduction to racing your
dinghy' course. Timed for the start of the school holidays and warm water, the idea was to swell
our depleted racing numbers with a simple approach whilst also garnering more help on the
race management side.

So if anyone else is suffering the same malaise as us, which was simply reduction in numbers
due to changing life circumstances mainly, I can heartily recommend bunging a three night
course based around the raw basics, with some match racing in the club boats (we have a
couple of fevas and toppers) thrown in.

We involved everyone from the regular racers, and it resulted this sunday in the biggest
numbers we've had in recent years at our annual "ship race".

Paired folk up, got them all to sail a match race, run a race and do race boat, with a help of a
handout

The plain fact is, there just isn't enough for grown ups in the regular system, there's plenty of
learn to sail stuff, but at least in this part of the world, not much else in secondary training or
at least if there is I've not come across it.

So if your club's in the doldrums, give it a go, maybe you already do, far be it from me to teach
anyone how to suck eggs, but it's definitely worked for us, we drew on parents of the team
fifteen windsurfers, recent new members and just about anyone else who was interested which
turned out to be a couple of dozen.

Wasn't sure where to post this, so put it here because the handout bit has some useful dumbed
down tips, flags & raw basics to get most folk going, you know how complex sailing can get
once you start delving to deep which puts most folk off.

Nice to see it all degenrating so quickly...maybe we have lost the point of GRF's first post with no shoulder chips or axes being ground before it had a chance to be taken seriously. I hope not, as there was, for once, plenty of sense in it. Our club has junior group, ladies group, beginners courses and the like, all of which are well attended. Put on a start (or even improve) racing course, and the silence is deafening. Why? The racing standard among middle aged males certainly needs improving here, as I'm sure it does most places. Maybe middle aged males have enough comptition in their lives outside of sailing, and just need to unwind at the back of the fleet?

I did wonder if anyone else did it, definitely something we'll do again next
year, I'd love a copy of that CD Gary I'll pm my address, there are a lot of
keen folk who'll devour it.

We need a couple of bigger wash tubs, I'm thinking Vagos, the little Fevas
aren't really up to anything other than Adult/child, it was v. light last night
and painful watching them sat head to wind going nowhere.

So do the overseas centres dump their used stock back in the UK like they
do their windsurfing boards I wonder? It would be a cheap way of getting a
couple of training boats..

Vision? Wasn't on the radar, yep, it is now, worth also considering..

Edited by G.R.F.

Originally posted by alstorer ... which is now I think absorbed into the RS Association hive-mind.

Hmm yes, a bit like being assimilated by the Borg I guess.