Lifeskills National Careers Week - Becoming a windsurfing instructor

by Emma Slater on 5 Mar 2015 To coincide with Lifeskills National Careers Weeks (02-06 March) we’re taking a look at some of the fantastic careers available within the Marine Industry. Today we take a look at what it takes to become a windsurfing instructor.

Getting paid to go windsurfing is the dream right? What about the prospect of travelling, and the buzz of teaching others and seeing them grow to love the sport you do so much?

Look out of the window now and admit the idea of being on the water, maybe somewhere warm, doing the thing you love all day, picking up a wage for doing it and hanging out with your mates isn’t just a tiny bit enticing.

And it’s a reality that is actually very obtainable. Become a windsurfing instructor in 2015 and these are doors that open up for you, and who knows, get the right qualifications, meet the right people, and do the right things and your planned career path could take an altogether different direction.

Between 250 and 300 people qualify to teach windsurfing through the RYA each year with over 2,500 RYA instructors in total teaching windsurfing around the world.

You don't need to be a rock star windsurfer before becoming an instructor; just have a passion and love for the sport, and most importantly, a desire to teach people.

Sound familiar?

At basic entry level the Assistant Instructor (AI) award recognises the 'in-house' training given to windsurfers, looking to help out at a local club or centre. An AI is a competent intermediate non-planing sailor, trained to assist instructors up to Youth Stage 2 and adult Start Windsurfing level. They must work under the supervision of an RYA senior instructor (SI).

From 16 you can undertake Start Windsurfing instructor training. All you need is an intermediate non-planing certificate with beach starting and non-planing gybe clinics, an RYA Powerboat level 2 certificate and a valid first aid qualification.

RYA Start Windsurfing instructors are qualified to teach the Start Windsurfing course, Stages 1 and 2 of the Youth Windsurfing Scheme and Start Windsurfing of the national scheme, all under the supervision of a senior instructor.

The course is five days and a combination of onshore, on-the-water and classroom theory tuition, with not only practical guidance on teaching technique and introducing the kit but highlighting and reinforcing the main teaching points, the teaching sequence (order of delivery) and coaching points for each stage.

Jake Patrick was 15 when he started as an AI at his local club at Pitsford Reservoir in Northampton. Now five years later he is living a life he never imagined thanks to the doors that instructing opened up to him.

Jake, the eldest of four windsurfing siblings, explains: 'I started windsurfing at Tallington Lakes when I was about nine, although I’d been on boards since I could walk thanks to our Grandpa Roger! Then we got into Pitsford Pirates Team15, right next to the village where we lived. I started on a 5.5 but only did it for about a year because I was one of the eldest and was also quite heavy for the smaller sails.

'When I was in T15 I looked up to the instructors and volunteer parents and wanted to be doing what they were! Once I became an AI I properly loved it and when I turned 16 two friends encouraged me to go with them to Astbury Watersports to do our Start Windsurfing instructor qualification under Ali Yates.

'For the next three years I taught windsurfing in the summer at Northampton SC, helped coach and instruct with T15 every Tuesday and did instructing at the weekends and in the school holidays. I was racing too, and because I had my Powerboat Level 2 I got my Safety Boat certificate, which gave me a source of income during the winter doing safety boat at Pitsford Reservoir.'

After leaving school, Jake, a talented rugby player, had the chance to pursue that as a career, joining a rugby college and playing for Bedford Blues Academy.

However although time pressures meant windsurfing took a backseat, he didn’t abandon it altogether getting his Senior Instructor qualification at Bray Lake.

It was a decision that proved pivotal when, after injury put his rugby career on hold, a friend he met on that course suggested he did a summer season with Mark Warner Holidays in Sardinia. Jake didn’t need asking twice.

'I did six months in Sardinia, two with Mark Warner and four with a Dutch company in the north of the island and it was class! I did safety boat driving, taught windsurfing and did some coaching too. It was long days, and hard work but it hardly felt like work spending all day on the beach in the hot sunshine. It was wicked.'

After returning from Sardinia in September 2012, Jake, now 21, worked at Boylos Watersports shop in Lyme Regis, Dorset, owned by another friend, Murray Saunders, he met on his SI course.

As well as working with distribution for major windsurfing brands, Jake also teaches Paddleboarding having been fast-tracked through his instructor course thanks to his windsurfing instructor qualifications.

He admits while his windsurfing qualifications set him on the path to the life he now lives, it’s been the people he has met along the way that have opened the doors.

Jake added: 'I spend my days overlooking the lovely bay at Lyme Regis, with two flexible days off each week that allow me go wavesailing locally or in Cornwall. When I started doing T15 at Pitsford I couldn’t have imagined this would be my life!

'You meet so many different people in the watersports environment it’s impossible to know what opportunities you might get next. I’ve met a Belgian filmmaker who’s worked on ads for Red Bull and Quiksilver, and a friend of mine now works in the marine industry through someone he met while working for Mark Warner.

'When you start as a windsurfing instructor you think that is going to be your life but it’s the contacts you make that can really define what happens. I owe everything I’ve got at the moment to windsurfing. That is a pretty cool thing to be able to say.'

Jake has also written many articles for various publications on his windsurfing and Watersports activities from Men’s Fitness and SUP Magazine to Boards and Windsurf and he is currently setting up his own business.

'My advice to young people thinking of becoming instructors would be to say yes to every opportunity. The windsurfing industry is so vast that once you are in, it can take you anywhere', Jake concluded.

To find out how you could become an RYA qualified Windsurfing Instructor, and dates for forthcoming courses visit website