General

13 sailors took part in the RS Tera Open Meeting hosted at the Isle of Man Yacht Club today.

The conditions were ideal for the first day of racing with a light SE breeze, providing excellent racing conditions, particularly for those who have not raced before. The Tera Sport fleet saw Ffinlo Wright winning races one and two and Greg Kelly winning race three. The three Tera Pro sailors all won one race each, leaving everything to play for tomorrow.

Forecast for tomorrow is giving SW force 4, so there may be a few waves to play with…….

Yeay! The terns are back in the bay. We are visited every year at about this time by a dozen or so terns, which have been seen mating here in previous years. They are usually around until mid May and tend to be seen around the cliffs at the Cosy Nook / Mortuary Beach end of the bay. They are birds which sit on the yellow buoy just of the beach.

I have only seen one today, but more will follow. For the first time in three years I have managed to get close enough to positively identify this one as a Sandwich Tern, black beak with a yellow tip on the end.

There’s been a couple of gannets in the bay recently too and a heron flew by today as well.

I won’t be long until the basking sharks are here……..

This weekend the IOMYC will host an RS Tera Open Meeting. We have just delivered five of our boats to the Club for the event. So far 14 local juniors have entered; six existing Manx Youth Sailing Squad members and five other sailors who’ve been on courses at 7th Wave. The Manx Youth Sailing Squad coaches will be there too, looking to invite promising young sailors to join the Squad. The weather looks reasonable for Saturday and a bit more breeze for Sunday – should be an interesting weekend.

Start times: 14.30 on Saturday for two races, 10.30 on Sunday for two races.

Our new fleet of sailing dinghies has arrived and the boats have been on the water during our Easter Youth Sailing Weeks.

The new boats are from Topper and we have a combination of 3 x Topper Taz for our younger sailors and 3 x Topper Topaz for older sailors. Both types of boat are designed to take two people, meaning that beginners can sail with a friend as they take to the water for the first time. The Topaz will enable young sailors to complete Stage 4 without having to wait until they are big enough to sail the 420s. The Topaz will also be used for adult sailing courses as either a single-handed or double-handed boat.

We are set for an exciting summer 🙂

This year we are pleased to be able to offer sailing sessions on Saturdays to all our junior sailors.

Saturday Club will be a fantastic way for young sailors to continue sailing from April through to the end of October. It’s about having fun, making friends, improving skills and moving up the sailing ladder, working through the RYA scheme. Sailing, kayaking, powerboat trips, bodyboarding or shorebased sessions will be held each week regardless of the weather conditions. Saturday Club will replace the After School Sailing sessions.

There will be two sessions every Saturday during school term time (24th April – 17th July and 11th September – 30th October) with a choice of 10.30am to 12.30pm or 2pm to 4pm, the fee is £26 per session. If you’ve got your own kit turn up ready to go on the water, if not we will provide wetsuits and buoyancy aids, please remember your RYA logbook each week too!

Sailors can attend weekly, once a fortnight, once a month or whatever fits in with your schedule, please let us know in advance. If you’d like to book a regular slot please drop us a line.

New boats arriving soon!

It must officially be summer in Port Erin now, the Commissioners have taken the barriers to the beach away

Sold the first bucket and spade of the year today!

The season is fast approaching (even though we still have snow on the hills!) and our 2010 courses start in earnest next month.

The first scheduled course is the RYA Basic Navigation and Safety Course on 6th and 7th March. This course is aimed at small boat users and is an introduction to basic elements of chartwork, tides, GPS use, weather forecasts, anchoring, journey planning, collision regulations, safety considerations and much more. It is an enjoyable shorebased course which will increase your confidence on the water. The course runs from 9.30am – 5pm on both days. The fee is £169 per person and includes VAT, all course notes, refreshments and certificates.

On Saturday 13th March we have a VHF Radio course running from 9am until 5pm. This course provides the knowledge, confidence and legal documentation required to operate a marine VHF/DSC radio. The fee is £99 per person and includes, VAT, course notes and refreshments throughout the day. We have a very limited number of places currently left on this course.

Our Youth Sailing Weeks start at Easter! We will be running two courses this holiday on the weeks beginning 5th April and 12th April. Places for both these weeks are filling up pretty quickly. We have a Stage 2 / 3 week during the first week and for the second week we have a mixture of beginners places available and places for Stage 3 and above sailors too (who will probably be doing a bit a racing during the week too). The course runs from 10am until 5pm Monday to Friday fees are £265 per person, we provide boats, wetsuits, buoyancy aids, certificates and RYA Logbooks for all students. Summer courses are also filling up quickly, so please contact me soon if you would like to book a place on any of our Youth Sailing Weeks.

The first Powerboat Level 2 course of the season will be over the weekend of 17th and 18th April. The course runs from 10am until 5pm on both days. We provide boats, lifejackets, course notes, logbooks and certificates for all students. The fee is £254 per person.

The conditions varied from strong wind and rain to light breezes and sunshine for the Manx Youth Sailing Squad’s second training session with RS Tera GBR Squad coach Jonathan Lewis. Six Manx sailors were invited to join the GBR RS Tera Squad following their performance at the UK RS Tera National Championship last September. They will all be representing Great Britain at the RS Tera World Championships in Carnac, Brittany this summer.

Jonathan spent three days on the Isle of Man, continuing the coaching programme he had begun on his last visit to the Island in November. He was impressed that the team had continued to train through the winter and that they had been practising the techniques which he introduced on his last visit. Boatspeed was the focus of this coaching session and the sailors worked hard to improve their upwind and downwind performance and boat handling.

Squad members Hannah Howitt, Izzy Sharpe and James Kelly have recently progressed to the RS Tera Pro class. All three have enjoyed some excellent sailing and the extra power provided by the Pro rig.

Younger squad members Amie Shute, Ffinlo Wright and Greg Kelly will compete this season in the RS Tera Sport. Amie has been with the Squad for two years and is a consistent sailor who puts a lot of thought into her racing. The youngest member Ffinlo was new to the Squad in 2009, his sailing has improved dramatically during the training sessions with Jonathan. Greg Kelly has an excellent track record finishing 3rd in the 2008 RS Tera Inland Championship, 3rd the under 12s at the RS Tera European Championship and 10th at the RS Tera National Championship in 2009, he is the quickest Tera Sport sailor in the MYSS and there are high hopes for a good result at the World Championships.

All six members of the Manx Youth Sailing Squad will attend a GBR Squad training weekend at Draycote Water next month to prepare for the World Championships. The Manx Youth Sailing Squad were the grateful recipients of a grant from Manx Telecom’s ‘It’s Our Community Awards’ to help meet their costs of attending this vital training weekend.