Adult Race Coaching at Ripon SC
Published 22:38 on 24 Mar 2026
When an extra weekend became free in the early season calendar the first question was what to do with it. The obvious answer was to run an early season refresher and coaching session for the club's adult sailors. The session was well attended with 19 sailors led by a team of 4 instructors and coaches.
The Instructor Led group had a general refresher on boat handling after their winter break. The group were made up from participants, who completed their RYA Level 2 last year, and were looking to get back into the groove early season and some more experienced sailors, who wanted to work out the kinks and refresh their abilities on the water. The L2 sailors all using the excellent club ILCA's were straight out of the blocks tacking reach to reach extending to a harden up and beat to a windward mark. They started showing some good close boat control in company and we worked on the rules of the road. The non-ILCA sailors, made up of a Heron, Gul and 2 Mirrors were a delight to behold on the water lovely examples of classic dinghies and well suited to Ripon. After lunch the course was extended and all the sailors practised starts and sail and foil controls over all points of sail.
For the Race Skills group, light winds early in the session provided a good opportunity to look at boat setup and controls which allowed a couple of problems to be fixed on individual boats. Moving on to the water, the group then looked at straight line boat speed and responding to gusts and shifts (always important at Ripon). The afternoon session was spent working on race skills including mark roundings and starts. A couple of the sailors have children in ROTTERS so it looks like some interesting family battles may develop over the season.
What started out as a Foggy, damp morning turned into a fantastic day of sailing. Thanks to the Instructor/Coach team of Jimmy, Tim, Charlie and Ian for all their hard work in pulling the session together. We hope to see all the sailors out on the water over the next few weeks as the season kicks into gear. The only question now is whether these sessions need a new name to match the ROTTERS. Possibly the RASCALS?
Last updated 22:39 on 24 March 2026