Establishment of a Sailing school in the KZN Midlands

South African Sailing (S A S) with the assistance of the Department of Sports and Recreation together with the Henley Midmar yacht club and other generous sponsors intends establishing a Sail Training establishment at Midmar Dam.  This facility is to cater for those families who wish to introduce their children to the lifetime sport of sailing as well as to provide a platform for interested schools to have sailing as part of their official school sport programme.

The instruction will be carried out by trained instructors under the Supervision of Ricky Robinson the Regional training development officer of SAS.  It is intended to begin with a sail introduction course for beginners from the age of eight upwards and thereafter progress to the exciting concept of Team Racing.

The initial course will be taught according to the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) curricular for the introduction to sailing and once sufficient proficiency is achieved graduates will be introduced to team racing.

Team racing as the name implies involves a number of boats competing against each other in teams where the position of the team at the finish is more important than the actual finishing positions.  It therefore does not rely on sailing prowess but rather on decision making and strategy.

Henley Midmar Yacht Club has made its facilities available to the participants free on the day of instruction and once sufficient proficiency in sailing is obtained Members will be offering crew places on their boats for regular weekend sailing.

In order to promote and gauge the level of support for this facility SAS will be holding an OPEN DAY at the club for interested families to come along and let their children experience sailing on some of the sailing boats which have been loaned by members,  Instruction and experiential learning will be under the supervision of the trained instructors.

The dates set aside for these OPEN DAYS are the 17th and 30th of August 2014.  Entrance to the Club will be free as will the day experience for the youngsters.

At the end of each day the participants will be invited to enroll in the concept and parents will be appraised as to the cost and frequency of the official course of instruction.

Contact 033-330 4158 for more information.