A beautiful sunny day but cold southeasterly wind was the weather that greeted those attending the first of four Saturday ‘Taster Sessions’ at Sidmouth Sailing Club.

Unfortunately those looking forward to getting out on the water were sadly disappointed as the southeasterly wind made for some difficult sea conditions along the shore making it unsafe for any attempt to be made to launch boats.

The decision was taken that no sailing would take place.

After a brief welcome to the club by the commodore, Simon White and principle training officer, Scott Tobin, those that had joined up for the sessions were given some shore based theory and practical input. It was hoped this would help to get everyone geared up and ready for going afloat next week.

Various members of the club supplied the input; this included a lesson and refresher on knot tying covering some of those knots used most commonly by the sea faring and the boating fraternity. Theory, covering points of sailing, and sailing ‘terminology’ was delivered in the comfortable surroundings of the clubhouse, where tea, coffee and assorted hot and cold snacks were readily available. It was then time to venture outside for a practical session involving how an RS Vision Dingy is rigged in preparation for sailing. The theory and practical session also covered the various functions of the spars and foils on the boat and how they would be used, and their function, when on the water sailing.

Some practical ‘tacking’ practice in a suitably rigged topper in the boat park was next on the list.

This enabled everyone to go through the motions on how to tack a sailing dingy; hopefully the opportunity to put this drill into practice will take place during the following three sessions. The morning session ended with participants being shown the three ribs used by the sailing club as patrol boats whose primary role is that of safety of those sailing on the water.

It is now ‘fingers crossed’ for some favorable weather conditions next week where hopefully everyone will have the opportunity to experience the thrill of sailing in a Mirror, Vision, Scorpion or RS Feva.