Local Kids Learn to Sail with the Academy

Over the mid-year school holidays, a group of students from two schools in the Villiersdorp farming region participated in the South African Sailing Western Cape's Learn to Sail Level two Camp with Theewater Sailing Academy at Theewater Sports Club.  It was awesome to see the progress of our young group of dinghy sailors over the three days.

Learners from Bissetsdrift and De Villiers Graaff Schools attended 18 hours of sail training over three days from a team of four SA Sailing certified Instructors, taking them through their Youth Dinghy Sailing Level Two certification on the SAS Learn to Sail Program.

Our young sailors enjoyed a mix of theory lessons in the Training room, land based dry drills at the water’s edge and on the water sessions on our fleet of Topaz Race X dinghies with a safety boat in attendance during all on the water training.  The youngsters stayed in the Youth Clubhouse and Ma Baker (Janice Rust) looked after our hungry sailor’s dietary needs with three hot meals per day and ensured that they all had sufficient dry warm clothes and bedding.

At the Sailing Academy, our slogan is “sailing is FUN!”, we try to ensure that all learning is always done in a safe and enjoyable manner.

We were blessed with almost perfect weather on the first and last days, the second day however saw high winds and we resorted to our Plan B which involved a mix of theory, sailing games and short adrenaline blasts in 25 plus knots of breeze with an instructor at the helm.

The following eight youths were invited to attend the Level 2 training:

Christiano Buffel - 30.11.2005 (geen geboortepapier nie)
Richard Mabhifi - 8.10.2005 (geen geboortepapier nie)
Jeraldo Everson – 0406265431089
Faydel Swarts – 070313587683
Adrian Baardman – 0602045674085
Jordan Williams - 0204125235083
Matthew Jones - 0504306056087
Natasha van Eck – 0404060346081

Unfortunately, Adrian Baardman was a no show.

It was awesome to see the enthusiasm with which the various tasks, both on and off the water were tackled. 

As an Instructor group, we carefully monitored each student’s progress and aptitude toward sailing.  We identified five youngsters that we believe could develop into really good sailors, given the opportunity and ongoing training.

Going forward we wish to raise funds to allow us to continue training those kids who were identified as having a natural aptitude for the sport.  We envisage appealing to the following for assistance:

DCAS & SAS National & Regional
Overberg Sailing Federation
Local Business
Theewater Sports Club & its Members

We aim to take our “A Team” through the rest of the SA Sailing Learn to Sail program, Levels 3 & 4 and then to put them through our Race Training program, with a view to having them as part of our racing team for next season.

A vote of thanks must go to all those involved in making this project a huge success, DCAS, SASWC, Theewater Sports Club Board & Staff, Ma Baker and the Academy Instructors!