Training
Littleton Sailing Club is an RYA Training Centre offering courses in dinghy sailing leading to RYA certificates. Our beginners' dinghy courses are a great way to take your first steps into the exciting sport of dinghy sailing whilst our more advanced courses lead you on to sailing with spinnakers and starting to race. Our training principal is Martin Vinson – if you are interested in any course or would like more information please email Martin. The courses are available to club members only - so if you are not currently a member you will need to Join before starting a course. Littleton is a volunteer club run by its members for its members and has no club employees. Courses are run by enthusiastic; RYA-qualified, volunteer instructors, who are also club members. This allows us to offer the courses at an attractive price. Other benefits of using club instructors are that they can introduce you to club life in general and can offer advice on how to develop your new found skills within the club, following completion of your course.

RYA sailing courses offered by the Club:

RYA Level 1 Start Sailing and Level 2 Basic Skills

These are run as a combined course and will take you from complete beginner to the stage of being able to safely rig, launch and recover your dinghy and sail in light to moderate breezes on inland waters. During these courses we use both double-handed dinghies (RS Visions - a modern centre main dinghy) and single-handed Laser Radials and/or Laser Picos. You will normally have the chance to sail both the double-handers and the single-handers. Together with the course Senior Instructor you will decide which dinghy is most appropriate for you at any particular stage of the course and will also take account of your own preferences. Some people prefer the double-handers, which are roomier and allow an instructor to accompany you. Others prefer the independence of sailing on their own in a single-hander. In this case the instructor will be giving you help from a power boat.  Two courses are planned for 2010 – see below. They last 5 days and are aimed at adults with little or no previous experience.

RYA Start  Racing

This course is intended for those who can sail but with little or no experience of racing. It is intended to get you to the stage of being able to take part in racing at the Club without being concerned about being around other more experienced sailors. The course will cover race organisation including: race courses and the starting sequence, essential rules, boat handling at the start and overall race strategy. There will be strong emphasis on on-water exercises. The course lasts two days and you can use your own boat or arrange to hire a club boat at additional cost.

RYA Sailing with Spinnakers

This course introduces you to sailing modern designs of dinghy with asymmetric spinnakers. It uses the Club’s RS Vision dinghies. The course covers rigging, hoisting, dropping and gybing the spinnaker. It will also deal with the specific sailing techniques required to get the best out of the spinnaker, includingapparent wind sailing and gybing downwind. The course lasts 2 days.

Planned Course Dates 2010

The contact for all these courses is Martin Vinson training@littletonsc.co.uk