Skills and Experience Weekend
Duration: 2 days
Venue: Cowes
Price: £249 pp
The perfect opportunity work on your sailing skills with the help of our instructor
Venue: Cowes
Price from: £325 per person
Duration: 5 Days
Join us for the perfect introduction to sailing! This course is run over 5 days at the end of which you will gain your RYA Competent Crew certificate...your first step towards becoming a sailor!
"I had a fantastic experience and to sum it up I would say that it was the best thing that I have done for ages.I set myself my own challenge and achieved it and I am still on a high !!" Anabel March 2017
"My skipper had incredible subject knowledge, passion, patience, communication skills, and gave specific, valuable and purposeful feedback, she would not let me give up, and made me keep practising the tricky practical applications of what I thought I knew! " Penny April 2017
Starts: 10am GFS Office at Shepards Wharf Marina
Finishes: Ends 4pm day 5
About The Event
This is a fantastic 5 day course where you can get on board a yacht and learn as much as you can over the week. You will work towards the RYA Competent Crew Certificate.
This course is aimed to encourage you out on the water and have fun doing it! During the course, you spend 4 nights on board the boat, really seeing how sailing life suits you. Get involved! - From cooking to tying the boat up in the marina, everything becomes a fun team effort.
The RYA Competent Crew Syllabus covers all the basics of being on a boat. We coach you so you are able to steer the boat under sail and motor power, understand all terms used on board, mooring techniques and even help you to row a dinghy!!
You will meet great likeminded people that become your friends (and family for 5 days) as you have some unforgettable experiences that will leave you wanting more! It's an opportunity to meet some more girls that you can go out sailing with and feel confident.
Each night you will end up in a new port to explore, where you will sit down with your skipper and fellow crew mates to go through the events and learnings of the day. By the end of the 5 days you should have sufficient knowledge to be able to be a 'competent' part of the crew on any sailing yacht.
Your RYA instructor will be there to help you through anything you are unsure of and will coach you all the way, including handy tips to remembering things. She is there to help you, so make sure you can get as much information that time allows! She loves to teach and loves watching new people learn the sport that she loves so much.
It's great fun and we hope the 5 days that will make you leave wanting to come back again, with new found friends and a new found love, what is there to not like?
The boat
We mostly coach on yachts of between 37 and 41ft. Our yachts have been specifically chosen as they are easy to handle, great for learning! There is no denying us girls sometimes don't have the physical strength of the boys but with our technical ability and a well-chosen yacht we can do just as well. You will usually find yourself aboard an Élan 37, Jeanneau 37 or a Beneteau 40.7. All of your time will be spent living as crew-mates on your yacht. Most of the yachts have 9/10 berths with 3 cabins and a saloon so the boats will normally have 2 persons in each cabin i.e. 6 - this is always the case for an RYA course, MAX 6 persons on-board. On some events e.g. races we use the saloon which can sleep an additional 2-4 person.
About Cowes
Cowes is widely credited as being the birthplace of UK yachting, seeing hundreds of 'yachties' descend every year on the seaside town and swelling its resident population multifold!
With a wealth of activities on and off the water and a year-round mild, sunny climate the island attracts loyal visitors and second home owners alike all year round but especially during the spring and summer months when the world class sailing conditions attract professional sailors from around the world to take part in famous regattas and races - as well as thousands of spectators who gather shoreside to watch the dramas unfold.
Easily reached by high speed passenger ferry, car ferry or even hovercraft (the island has the last remaining hovercraft service in the world) from Lymington, Southampton or Portsmouth on the mainland, the island is the perfect destination for young and old alike with plenty to see, eat and do.
Additional Info
What's included?
- Fully coded yacht with safety equipment
- Fully qualified RYA skipper
- All safety equipment
- Shared bunk on board*
- Diesel, water, electricity
- Breakfast & Lunch
- 3 evening meals onboard**
- FUN, FUN, FUN!!
What's excluded?
- Mooring fees
- Transport to and from meeting points
- Flights
- Alcoholic drinks
- Evening meal ashore
- Departure taxes/customs entries per person
- Any clothing
- Accommodation ashore
- **Please see additional info about sleeping onboard, food etc
Why choose Girls for Sail?
- First of all we want to give you some freedom, we want you to feel absolutely able to do anything onboard, so we will greet you, make you feel welcome, confident and safe, and of course you won't have anyone rushing you! You can learn at your own pace with our skippers and feel the benefit of this in your handling of our yacht!
- We pride ourselves on our levels of tuition. There's no such thing as a 'silly' question! There's no shouting onboard and as it's also your holiday, we want you to have fun and go home relaxed and satisfied with your time here! Not to mention you get to meet new lifelong friends!
Our values are simple: Encourage, Support, Challenge and Respect!
How to book?
Click on the link above to view available dates - or if you have any questions please feel free to get in touch with us!