New Boats Boost To Get More Boston People Sailing

Added RS Vision to growing training fleet

Witham Sailing Club is looking forward to getting even more people afloat in Boston this year after a £10,000 Sport England grant helped the club buy new boats.

The new boats were needed to meet increased demand for low cost sailing at the club following the successful introduction of a new Saturday Sailing initiative in 2013. 

Saturday Sailing was launched to offer local youngsters the chance to learn to sail and cater for new adult club members who wanted to improve their skills. But such has been the popularity of the sessions Witham is already looking at how it can get even more people sailing and sailing regularly over the next year.

Dave Sauntson, Witham SC Development Officer, said: “This season we aim to build on what we’ve learned the past two years and the activities which have proved most popular. Most of all we want people to have fun.

“When it came to Saturday Sailing we realised the need for more modern boats and that we had to keep making it fun, to keep people coming back. We have parents of children who came to learn to sail now learning and sailing themselves.

“Witham isn’t just a river sailing club, we’re also lucky enough to be positioned next to a tidal lock giving us access into The Wash, so it’s one of our aims to be able to support more new sailors, who have reached a certain competency level, in venturing out into the tidal waters to experience the differences in the sport.

“This is being made possible because the Saturday Sailing has drawn a lot of our members into coaching and teaching. We have had a number of new instructors qualify in the last year as well as getting their powerboat/safety boat certificates. It has given some members a far bigger part in the life of the club.”

The latest addition to Witham’s training fleet is an RS Vision dinghy, funded through the Sport England Small Grants programme. This is a resilient family sailboat, which introduces high performance elements of the sport including using a spinnaker and trapeze, where a sailor hangs off a wire over the side of a boat to make it go faster.

As well as helping sailors practice more advanced skills during Saturday Sailing, the Vision, along with the club’s Laser Pico and GP14 dinghies, will also be available for people hire to for club racing on Wednesday nights, keeping the cost of sailing down.

 Meanwhile the club is also currently pulling together funding applications to extend and improve its clubhouse facilities.

Witham’s whole training fleet will be on duty when the club offers you the chance to try sailing for FREE on Saturday 9 May, as part of national Push The Boat Out. 

It doesn’t matter how old you are or if you’ve never sailed before, Push The Boat Out is your chance to get out on the water and see what all the fuss is about as part of a nationwide event organised by sailing’s national governing body, the RYA, to introduce newcomers of all abilities and experience to the sport. 

Last year 260 sailing clubs and watersports centres in Britain hosted Push The Boat Out Open Days and have-a-go sessions, with 17,000 people getting a taste for the sport for the first time!

To find out how you can get into sailing with Witham SC this year visit the club website at www.withamsailingclub.co.uk