Horning Boat Show Try Sailing Day
by Holly Hancock 3 May 2016 07:18 BST
30 April - 1 May 2016
It was a great weekend for Horning Sailing Club, and a fantastic way to kick off the training season. On 30th April Horning Sailing Club ran its very successful taster sessions as part of the Horning Boat Show, with around 100 people trying sailing in perfect weather conditions, in a mixture of traditional broads boats, from the beautiful River Cruiser Zingara, at over 100 years old, to the Rebel One Design, Yare & Bure One Design, Reedling Keelboat, Yeomans, Enterprise Dinghy and Wood Violet from Hunter's Yard. It was also an extremely exciting occasion, with Horning revealing several new additions to its fleet, with the official handover of two new Optimist dinghies from the Horning Boat Show Community Fund to the Club, and the unveiling of five brand new Topper dinghies sponsored by Richardson's holidays. As an entirely volunteer run organisation, Horning Sailing Club are extremely grateful to both Richardson's and the Horning Boat Show Community Fund for their generosity, as these boats will make a huge difference to training.
Over the past 12 years hundreds of young people and adults from the local community have learnt to sail through the Training Centre and the new boats will be a great asset to improving their training experience. A key part of the Club's development was becoming an OnBoard Club in 2009, which enabled the opportunity to offer sailing experiences to local schools, youth and community groups. In 2013 the Club became an RYA Champion Club, reflecting the high standards of race tuition, and in both 2014 and 2015 was a Finalist in the RYA's Club of the Year Competition.
Providing weekly sailing tuition, many of the young people who learnt to sail at Horning have progressed to teach with the Club, and over time the young sailors have progressed, with, in 2014, for the first time, six young sailors taking the next step and joining regional and national sailing squads, sailing not only over the county, but the country and worldwide too. In the 2015/16 season the Club is delighted that even more young people have been accepted into the regional and national Topper sailing squads, gaining fantastic experience and skills. At the recent Topper Winter Regatta at the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy, out of over 150 entrants several of our sailors finished in the top 40 results, with one picking up the trophy for First under-13 sailor. The Club is extremely proud of the efforts of its members, from the enthusiastic instructors and helpers who put endless hard work into the Club, to the young sailors who have represented the Club at National and World events.
The Club is now looking forward to its next events, a Push the Boat Out Event on 21 May, followed by the Three Rivers Race on the 4/5 June, shortly afterwards welcoming back both Horning School and later in June young people from Chernobyl.
To find out more about the Club please visit www.horningsc.co.uk