ROTTERs return at Ripon Sailing Club
by Lucy Priest 16 May 2025 09:59 BST
10-11 May 2025
ROTTERs return at Ripon SC © Gail Jackson
Following a successful Discover Sailing day on the 5th May Ripon Sailing Club's ROTTERs (Ripon Oppy, Topper and TERa sailors) met at the club on 10th May for their next planned session and were joined by lots of new members, with 25 sailors between the ages of 4 and 14 taking part in at least one session during the day.
The day began with a reminder of the club safety rules and some onshore games as the breeze slowly filled in before the sailors divided into groups for the next set of activities. While previous sessions have seen the sailors divided into Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced groups the difference balance of sailors this month resulted in a combined Intermediate/Advanced (White) group, a Refresher group and a Beginner (Blue) group, with two further Beginner groups joining the afternoon activities, proving we need more bib colours!
The White group were focusing on downwind sailing and after a short briefing the sailors headed out to a pre-set windward/leeward course to practise their gybes while the Refresher and Beginner groups headed to the boat park to start by rigging some of the club training fleet. With a selection of Teras and Oppies rigged the Refresher group were ready to launch and spent some time doing some reaching laps close to the jetties before being herded off to sail downwind past the clubhouse and then making their way back upwind to the jetty area, while some of the Beginner group had an introduction to the lake from one of the power boats.
After a quick drink break the Refresher group moved across to the same course area as the White group, with different points to focus on. The sailors were remembering more and more of their skills and were focusing on efficient upwind sailing while the Intermediate group were now working on the transitions between upwind and downwind sailing and looking at effective ways to sheet in and out quickly without stalling the boat.
Meanwhile the Blue group moved down to the jetty area and were finally able to start sailing and by lunchtime each of the group had taken several trips between the jetties and was becoming more and more confident in climbing in and out of boats and knew where to sit and how to steer.
After lunch with the breeze building the White group were challenged to join the adult sailors in the club Saturday series race, which is primarily aimed at sailors new to racing. This saw some interesting parent and child battles across the fleet, with only seconds between family members in some of the corrected results while an excellent effort from Curtis saw him finish as Top Rotter in fourth overall.
Following a short break the group went back out to do some MarioKart racing (which allows the sailors to earn PowerUps that mean everyone but them has to do a 360) followed by an optional capsize practise session.
The three Beginner groups spent the afternoon cycling between trips around the lake in the club double handers and sailing between the jetties, supported in both activities by some of the club's youth sailors. The growing confidence in all three groups was great to see, with the majority of the participants managing to tack a single hander independently by the end of the day's activities, although it became very difficult to persuade some of the sailors that it was time to pack the boats away as the clock ticked well past the planned end of the afternoon session.
Once all the boats were finally packed away the ROTTERs joined the rest of the club for a bring and share BBQ and quiz which was won by the confidently named Gold Fleet team and mostly notable for the kids team getting the Minecraft question wrong!
With lots of the new sailors already signed up for RYA training courses over the May half term week we're already looking forward to the next ROTTERs sessions on the 7th & 8th June.