SailFirst Kids Club is having a short break over Easter from today until Tuesday. Wednesday will see the return of training. Prior to the Easter break, despite the sometimes inclement weather, most of the children got back on the water and started sailing again.

New for this year is the division of pupils into groups with similar abilities and this is already improving their skills. An example of this occurred last week when we were able to run a session for novice sailors by reducing the sail area on the Optimist dinghies by removing the sprits and wrapping the head of the sail around the mast and attaching it with a rope to the boom. The result more the boats more stable, slower, but a little more difficult to tack.

The intermediate sailors in the following session went out with full rigs and were able to sail in the open sea and waves beyond the shelter of the breakwater. Last year with mixed ability sessions, the intermediate sailors would have been held back by the slower boat, which also puts pressure on both the safety boat and the instructor running the sessions.

We did suffer one capsize in the daily sessions when the youngest sailor in the novice group gybed and got caught on the wrong side of the boat and fell out of the boat. He was quickly plugged out of the relatively warm water by the safety boat, his boat was righted and he was sent ashore to change into warm clothes.

The children will have an opportunity to sail from a new location, when SailFirst sponsors a beach clean up in Akamas on the 18th April