All the mebers who gave an email address were offered a chance to take a free Day Skipper Theory Course with Steffan from Classic Boat. John  Barker was quickest on the draw saying yes within 10 minutes of the emails going out. Steffan will be continuing his tuition in March, this time doing the practical course on Marcita out of Pin Mill. The story will run as a series in CB from May onwards.

This is John's Blog

RYA DAY SKIPPER THEORY COURSE

What a pleasant surprise, an unsolicited e-mail that is actually worth

pursuing, a competition run by the club and requiring one simple task to win,

feel sure Ian must have had my level of knowledge in mind when he set the

question, although it did for a few moments sound too good to be true so I

hesitated, maybe for as long as 30 seconds before responding with, as it

turned out, the correct answer. This was a bit of a shock for two reasons, one

that “I had won something”, the other the course began in 7 days and my

knowledge of the subject “sailing”, was to be totally honest, nil. I feel I must

qualify my decision to tackle the course at this time, by stating that it has

been an unfulfilled desire of mine to put to sea in a sailing vessel ever since

my father took me out on the Broads for an hour in a hired dingy back in the

nineteen fifties, when I remember being fascinated by the wind moving us

effortlessly across the water. This was far removed from my normal mode of

transport at that time, the bicycle, which required a great deal of physical

effort to cover any distance and the wind usually presented itself as an

obstacle rather than a gift, however, I digress.

Following a call to Dan Houston editor of ClassicBoat who had

negotiated the gift to the Club with Team Sailing at Haslar Marina, I contacted

John Clarke who runs the school, arranged to pick up the RYA course pack,

and then had two days swotting before tuition began in earnest at 09.00

hours the following Monday, on reflection two months lead-in would have

been more desirable.

The class consisted of four, Steffan the News Editor of ClassicBoat an

agile young mind at home in this environment and at ease with new concepts,

then there was Keith, Chris and myself, three of us remember the Coronation

party at school. I will allow you to paint your own picture of the week's events

that followed concerning CoG, degrees (T),(M),(C), drying heights, tide height

at HW+2h(spring), etc.. etc.. and at the end of the day, homework!

It was necessary to eat out in the evening as we did not prepare meals on

This gives me the opportunity to recommend “The Castle Tavern” the food

was simple with a good choice and excellent value at two meals for £10, the

staff were helpful and the other patrons friendly, the beer wasn't bad either,

not that we were able to sample too much, what with the study and all.

At the end of the week with the exams over and the ego smarting a little

from those daft errors that has the boat moored safely over a mud flat at

MHWS in full view of the pub, we each received our certificates of

attendance, I do of course appreciate that having a piece of paper doesn't

make somebody a sailor, but it does help.

So let me thank my fellow class-mates for their contribution to a most

enjoyable week, John Clarke for his encouragement and you chaps from

ClassicBoat and Classic Sailing Club for the opportunity to further my ambition

to move off the river and get out to sea.