A perfect evening with sunshine and a gentle breeze heralded a wonderful opportunity for the six Junior sailors who turned up to enjoy last Friday's session at 5pm. As requested any children who could come down early to set up the boats, turned up and willingly got three of the four Optis ready to sail. It is an important learning experience for them to understand how things get set up, and take responsibility for their own boat for the evening. If anything goes wrong on the water they know how to attempt to fix it! Sailing teaches taking on responsibility for your own actions as well as self reliance and inventiveness. The Campbell family arrived from Beachaven by kayak and quickly got their Opti ready, with Connor and Autumn working together to rig it as fast as possible so everyone could get out on the water. After a short briefing, the Optis launched and were sailing by 5.15pm, heading over to Hellier's Creek to sail between two buoys on a beam reach, tacking round one and gybing round the other. Optis with two people on board really don't sail well so as much as possible they sailed solo. There were only a few totally out of control moments, but nothing serious to report. At 6.30pm the little fleet started to head back, but tide and failing wind meant that two got towed home and only Harrison and Gill managed to beat back to the slipway unaided. Gill was offered help by the social sailors at the club to lift the Opti out onto the jetty, as she sailed in under the wall out of the tide. She refused! Can't be beaten by a boy! The boats were washed out and put neatly to bed in the shed. Some children missed the debriefing session, which is a very important part of the evening, as this is the opportunity to clear up some of the incidents which happened on the water, which get forgotten by next week. One thing that cropped up, was that even though it was warm and sunny when the children set off at 5.15 by the time they came in after 6.45 they were quite cold. You always need warm and wind proof clothes when you sail!! The next Junior Sailing is on Saturday 14th Nov,at 11am, so please get down to the club about 10am to get the boats set up and ready to launch. Briefing at 10.45 and on the water by 1100 hours. Any club members who want to try out the Omegas or the Sunbursts please feel free to come and give them a try at the same time as we have the Juniors on the water. This will be a good warm up time ready for the Match Racing on Saturday 28th November, a nominal fee of $5 to take a dinghy out, proceeds to go to the Junior Sailing fund. Happy Sailing, Gill |
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