Saturday 8th October was the final planned practice session of the season, we were joined by 8 youth sailors, and also welcomed Jeremy, who has recently joined the club. A quick practice on trapezing, and we trundled down to the launching ramps with the three club Dart 16’s. The weather forecast was suggesting very light winds, so we decided to head upriver towards Green Point.
We commenced the session with some encouragement over sailing these boats in light winds, and managed to persuade those who had not previously helmed a multihull, to have a go.This was successful, until the winds continued to fail.
Within the RYA training methods, we use something called the five essentials, these include balance and trim, that club members will understand. The attached photographs will demonstrate the latest Felixstowe Ferry sailing club version of these methods, note the double trapezing off the bows intended to dig in the bows, and lifting the sterns clear of the water.
A further demonstration also shows how to trapeze upside down, possibly not seen during championship level sailing, this also may not be within approved training methods, but was impressive to watch.
The wind continued to fail, so we decided to head for home, we were off the water and managed to get to the Bar to enjoy a final refreshing drink, before finally heading home, unfortunately that is probably the last training session of the season, and time to look back at the years earlier sessions.
We had some really good sailing sessions using these excellent dart 16 catamarans. There is a consistent group of young sailors who have attended, and enjoyed the training. We have mixed, and swapped crews to enable both adult, and youth sailors to sail together, and develop the skills required to sail multihulls at sea.
This is proof that with encouragement, and a bit of time and effort, then it is possible to get club sailors afloat on Saturday afternoons, so as a club how good would it be to build on this type of sailing during the 2017 season. We have the club boats, qualified instructors, it just needs club members to help and support us and who knows what may develop.