Last Sunday 22Sept24 a short training session was held practising how to rescue the dinghies we encounter at our club. The example dinghies were all owned by the club and were a Topper, a Feva and a Wayfarer.

We had nine trainees who all are involved with the club and most are parents of our youth with several grandparents in the instruction team.

Rescueing a Topper with the centreboard involves pushing the hull away from the RIB – yellow boot action! This can be the most difficult position.

The training also covered towing and rigging for a tow, then return to home.

We hear that several Wayfarer owners would like to practise capsise with both self recovery and assisted recovery – Yes – the club would be pleased to set this up – it all eases the tasks for everyone if all are practised and trained.

Our wayfarer was capsised with a mast float and a turtled wayfarer rescue was not trained. We did do a Feva capsise with mast stuck in the mud just to show the further difficulties you encounter in real recoveries.

The biggest thank you after thanks to the Instructors and trainees goes to the youth casualty volunteers, without whom the course would not have been as easily possible. Very many thanks you are the future of the club.

No paddles were broken in this training !