Girls Day at Downs Sailing Club with KSSA
by Simon Cory 27 Jun 00:36 PDT
Now in its third year, the highly successful Girls Day was sold out to its maximum entry of 26 two weeks before the event.
With an aim to encourage participation and maintain engagement of female youth sailors this event is definitely delivering.
The event held at Downs SC had all the girls in supplied double handers, these were Feva, Hartley 12.2, Laser 2000 and RS200, we had guest coach Ellie Tapper who was a whirlwind of enthusiasm and support.
As well as Ellie the majority of supporting coaches, RIB crew and shore team were ladies, these were also excellent role models as they are all regular sailors. To kick the day off there was a legendry Downs Team Game, this year it involved gutters and tennis balls, you really had to be there to understand !!
The coaching was focused on the teamwork required to efficiently sail a double hander with asymmetric, an experience that many girls had never had, where possible more experienced girls were paired with younger or beginner sailors, this was the focus of the morning session, much swapping of boats took part and the RS200 was a highly sought after boat giving that wow factor !
The afternoon session was all about short sharp racing, again swapping of boats and crews took place to give a wide range of opportunity to all the girls, the weather was just perfect and you could really see the progress and learning taking place.
As in previous years all girls received a KSSA Girls Team Shirt.
So that was a snapshot of the day, but what was the outcome in the following weeks ? One team have been to the Feva Nationals, young female participation at Downs club racing is the highest it has been in a generation, KSSA events have almost reached equal girl/ boy participation. One team have progressed to and RS200, another pair have teamed up and persuaded Mum to buy a Feva and the Downs club Toppers are regularly pre booked.
Was the Girls Day a success? Yes, it definitely was!