April is on the doorstep, boats are rigged and on the boat park (well, almost all of them…) and our season is about to begin.
But it is still March, and I’m sitting at home with the fire lit, but I am excited. I’m excited about all the events happening this year and by all the ideas associated with them. My head is working faster than I can type, and as I try and write about one idea another one gets in the way….
We are doing the RYA Push the Boat Out Week in May. That’s right, a whole week of events and activities on and off the water. Each evening there will dinghies and RIBs, rowing boats, kayaks and a stand-up paddle board on the water for anyone to have a go, plus we’ll be working off the jetty in Port Erin, so you might not even have to get your feet wet! Off the water there’ll be food, Manx new spuds and fresh mackerel, and cocktails at sunset. I am especially looking forward to this week. Anyone can join us, I’m hoping it will be a really social event and that we meet lots of new people.
We’ve got RYA Coach Assessor Alan Jones visiting again in July to run a Dinghy Instructor course. We all really enjoy seeing our young sailors grow into young adults and take on the role of Instructor.
The Manx Youth Sailing Squad are on for an exciting year, with Ben Batchelor and Alec Cope both at the top of the RS Tera Pro and Sport fleets in the UK we will be following their regattas closely, whilst biting nails and crossing fingers and generally hoping for the best for them. At the same time we’ve got five brand new young members joining us this season. We love working with our new sailors as they make such rapid progress in that first season. Our aim is to get them to the Nationals in August.
This season sees a new sailing program for adults, basically we’ll be on the water every Thursday evening from May through to September – come and join us.
On top of all that, our Youth Sailing Weeks are up and running again. 7th Wave Race Academy for juniors starts in May. Laser training weekends, Saturday Skills Clinics, Powerboating and everything else it sure is busy!
And I haven’t even looked at Albert Penguin yet…