Learn to Sail 2023/2024 Season
Learn to Sail 2023/2024 Kicks off with our Muster on Friday 6th October 4.30pm at Hamilton Yacht Club, Innes Common. If you would like to join, please register your interest on the link below:
Learn to Sail Expressions of Interest
For returning Sailors, Register here:
Session Times
Learn to Sail Levels 1,2,3 - Fridays from 4:30pm onward. 1st Session of the year, Friday 13th October 2023.
Intermediate - Wednesdays from 4.30pm onwards. 1st session of the year, Wednesday 11th October 2023.
Learn To Sail - General Information
What age to start?
You can learn to sail at more or less any age though most would recommend introducing children to learning to sail after the age of 8. We do have plenty of older children including teenagers and indeed adults who have learned to sail with us and a number have become very successful sailors. For older sailors we will tailor programmes and boats to the sailor as appropriate.
Learn to Sail: Levels 1 and 2
The sailing season starts at the beginning of School term 4. Through terms 4 and 1, the club runs weekly junior learn to sail sessions on Friday afternoons after school. The basic aim of learn to sail is to introduce new sailors to the sport and get them to the point that they can sail themselves around a course independently. In keeping with many clubs in New Zealand, the Learn to Sail programme uses Optimist dinghys.
The Optimist is a very well tried, simple design that is easy to handle when first starting out, yet can be raced at a high level. The club has a number of Optimists that we provide free of charge to Learn to Sail students in their first year for their lessons.
Along the way they should develop greater confidence in the water, learn to right a capsized Optimist dinghy, and hopefully realise that sailing is a great sport and HYC is the place to be. Sailing teaches self-confidence, self-reliance, initiative and ingenuity - great skills for the future.
The Learn to Sail course is split into two levels. Level 1 is aimed at sailors who have never sailed before and Level 2 is aimed at sailors with some experience and wish to improve their basic skills. Most sailors spend 1-2 terms in Level 1 and 1-2 terms in Level 2. From Level 2, sailors may progress to Level 3, Learn to Race.
Learn to Race: Level 3
From Learn to Sail, students can progress to Learn to Race. The “Learn to Race” program helps sailors make the step from sailing around a course to racing around a course with other competitors; start sequences, rules for racing, adjusting sails and boat trim, - enough to enable them to be able to get involved in the club racing. Learning to race is a great way for sailors to hone skills and to learn more advanced techniques of sailing in a friendly and easy-going environment. Sailors are now encouraged to join with club racing which occurs on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons during the sailing season (October until the end of March).
Through the season the Race Officers will arrange shorter simpler race courses for those sailors in Optimists who are new to racing. This is called the OptiGreen fleet. The emphasis in this fleet is on participation rather than performance and generally one of the coaches will follow them around the race course offering encouragement and advice. Most sailors stay in the OptiGreen fleet for half a season or maybe one whole season before moving up.
Intermediate-Level Sailors
For the more advanced sailors we will cover a broad range of racing skills – efficient manoeuvres, sail tuning, starting, tactics, reading the wind on the water etc. We will arrange the sessions to suit the sailors taking part. Often intermediate sailors move into more advanced boats such as the P Class or Starling, dependent on the size of the sailor. These boats are more demanding to sail but at the same time, faster and in many ways more rewarding. Coaching for intermediate-level sailors takes place on a Wednesday after school and those sailors are strongly encouraged to join club racing on a Wednesday and Friday to hone their skills. We also arrange to go to regattas in Auckland, Tauranga, Cambridge and Raglan to name a few and sailors have competed in the P Class and Starling Nationals with good success.
OptiSail (See Optisail Page)
For those junior sailors looking to develop their skills in a short space of time the club runs a ‘live in’ camp called Optisail in January. We aim to get sailors on the water all day for 4 days with sailing activities and exercises. Sailors live at the clubrooms for the 4 days so HYC really does become the place to be. Optisail is the only course of its kind in the region and may become booked out so let us know as soon as possible if you are interested (talk to a coach or email the club secretary). The club tries hard to keep the cost of this camp as low as we can but at the same time we have to employ enough coaches that each sailor can get plenty of help with their sailing skills.
Adult Learn to Sail
We have had a number of adults who have learnt to sail with us in recent times - some going on to compete successfully at a high level. Whatever your interest, we look to tailor individual lessons to suit the sailor and these are taught by our club Secretary, Rob Ebert on a one on one basis. He teaches adults in a large version of the Optimist dinghy - an Optimax and he can normally get an adult sailing independently in 2-4, 1 hour lessons.
Costs (See Fees Page)
The cost for the Learn to Sail Levels 1 and 2, consists of $260 for club membership for one year and coaching fees of $150 for each of term 1 and term 4. The club membership consists of a junior sailing membership for a single student and a non-sailing membership for a parent (though sailing parents are of course very welcome to purchase a full sailing membership and join in club sailing if they wish). For those starting in term 1, we charge half a year membership ($130) plus coaching for term ($150). There are corresponding rates for more than one child joining. Level 3 and Intermediate sailors pay the same membership fees but Coaching fees for intermediate sailors are $200 per term.
We allow first time sailors to use our club boats for their first year with us free of charge and we have a small fleet of club Optimists. We strongly encourage sailors however to purchase their own Optimist after their first year, however Optimists are often cheap to purchase and a number of the current Optimists being sailed in the club have been sold on through club members for quite a few “generations” of sailors. For those moving up to other classes of boats, there are a very limited number of club boats that can be hired by session or by term (see Fees page).
The club membership allows full use of the club facilities and allows us to maintain the clubhouse, patrol boats and other assets, without which it would be impossible to run a learn to sail programme. The coaching fees allow us to employ a professional head coach and junior coaches to teach the programmes. The club however is very much run as a club and is not for profit and much work is also done by club members themselves on a voluntary basis. We welcome parents to use the club facilities and get involved in the club as much as possible.
For adult lessons Rob Ebert charges $50 per lesson and recommends 10 lessons to give you the basics. If you are interested please contact him at secretary@hyc.org.nz. Alternatively, we are looking to start an Adult learn to sail programme later this year in November. More details to come.
If you are interested in enroling your child in the learn to sail programme please register an expression of interest on the link above and we'll get in touch or if you'd like more information, you can contact our Head Coach, Nathaniel Short: CoachHYC@gmail.com or our Coaching Liaison Officer, TV Liew: tv_l@yahoo.co.uk or both.
Whatever your experience or confidence, we will try to help you become a better sailor, in a safe though sometimes challenging, environment. Along the way make friends and have a great time. Start your ‘Sport for Life!’ on Lake Rotoroa.
