FREE day to try sailing at Hollowell Sailing Club

Hollowell Sailing Club will once again be throwing its doors open to anyone who wants to try sailing for FREE on Saturday 7 May as the club goes from strength to strength

Last year the club received a £10,000 grant from the Sport England Small Grants programme to invest in four new dinghies to enable the club to offer more places on RYA training courses, a wider range of courses and a better range of boats for hire for anyone who wanted to learn to sail or develop their sailing skills.

No fewer than 800 places on RYA training courses were snapped up last year as the new boats had an immediate impact on the number of people the club could accommodate, with 130 people over the age of eight benefitting from the new boats in their first year.

As club commodore Russell Brayshaw explains: "We had reached the point where our youth and learn-to-sail sessions were so popular that demand had exceeded capacity and potential participants were being turned away. It was fantastic so many people wanted to sail with us but very frustrating that we weren't able to accommodate everyone.

"To rectify this we developed our 'Hollowell sailing connections for youth and adults' project with purchasing four new boats at its core. From our own funds we also planned to increase the number of trained RYA instructors to deliver courses. Providing people with more and better opportunities to sail with us to increase participation was the desired outcome.

"As part of our grant application we had to provide measures to monitor our success, such as increases in people participating in club racing, becoming members, hiring boats and taking training courses. When Sport England awarded us £10,000 to buy the boats it was brilliant and they have already had a huge impact, which will only increase again this year."

For full details of what is on offer at Hollowell SC this year visit www.hollowellsc.org.uk