RS200 Class Association Training Bough Beech Sailing Club
by Bough Beech SC 13 Jan 00:57 PST
11 January 2025
RS200 Training at Bough Beech © Will Taylor
The RS200 training day at Bough Beech Sailing Club started on a cold, early January morning, accompanied by a distinct lack of wind. However, that did not deter five boats for turning up for what turned out to be a very helpful day, led by Will Taylor.
The session started at 9.30am with covers off, rigging boats, and checking rig tensions. Will then made great use of the morning, despite the lack of wind, by running a longer shore-based session focusing on light and heavy air tacking and gybing, and using video clips to demonstrate techniques. This was accompanied by a very helpful Q&A session that improved our understanding of sail and boat trim and helm and crew positions going into, through and coming out of tacks and gybes.
After lunch the wind decided to make an appearance, which set us up nicely for an afternoon session on the water, and the opportunity to put some of the light wind techniques we'd gone through in the morning, into practice. Will structured the afternoon session around tacking and gybing drills with a varying breeze that allowed each of the five boats to experiment with different boat and sail trim options, with on the water coaching and feedback from Will.
As the wind filled in, there was the opportunity to have three short races and put our new skills into practice.
The training day culminated in a final session back in the club house, reviewing on the water footage that provided excellent feedback on what had and had not gone so well during the afternoon.
All in all, the training day was extremely helpful for all abilities and a massive thanks goes to Will for running the training, ably assisted by Faye Caswell; Mike Warwicker for organising the training, the RS Class Association for the grant and all the participants for what was an extremely informative and fun day of RS200 sailing and racing.
Many thanks! We're looking forward to the next one!!