Development and Transformation Report

Mossel Bay Yacht and Boat Club Transformation

In our High performance group that trains on Mondays there are two disadvantage teams. On the 420 is Marco Moolman and Reawon October, and on the Feva Elandre Oosthuizen and Deodorick Loots. Marco and Reawon are sailing a very technical boat and for them to improve they need to be on the water very regular. This however means commitment as they have to walk about 45min to get to sailing and back if transport could not be organised. This unfortunately means that there are many lost opportunities for training. Deodorick has some water fears that we will have to address carefully as not to put him off sailing.

Tuesdays fifteen Grades 6 and 7 student comes from Ridgeview primary to do their sailing. We have more time to work to develop potential in these pdi children. This is a very committed group that will be ready for racing by the end of this season. Most of them love the water although their swimming capabilities are not adequate. For this reason swimming practice is fitted in every week. The more comfortable a child is with the water the better his learning experience will be. We are hoping that they will continue sailing into their high school career giving us the best chance to develop real performance sailors from them.

Thursday Sao Bra and Hill crest and some Sea cadets come for training. Thanks to DCAS and the club development program they are fetched with a bus at school and delivered at the Yacht Club. This group is very irregular and we now at least average about ten students out of a possible twenty five students weekly. These students are the clubs target group to assist with job opportunities after school we would like to provide coaching courses and skipper courses for these students.

Mossel Bay Yacht and Boat Club Development Sailing

Mondays is High performance sailing in Mossel Bay. Here sailors that are ready to compete in higher level racing get intensive training. The race course aspects were divided up in different session and every week a different aspect is covered. We have 13 sailors that take part in these classes. Sailing sessions get filmed and analysed so that we can work on the finer details of sailing techniques. This group has two girl teams aiming to sail in the International Sailing Federation World Championship. This is the highest accolade that juniors can get in international sailing. These two teams and a further four other sailors are working toward sailing in their class world championship. The 420 team’s world championships will be held in Japan, the 29er worlds in Whales and the Toppers will be sailing their world championship in Italy. These students are expected to at spend least 10 hours on the water per week and some also spend two hours in the gym under the watchful eye of a biokinetics.

Wednesday is Open school day at Mossel Bay Yacht Club. On this day we introduce and train any school child that arrive how to sail. We deal with about forty students every Wednesday coming in two time slots. This training is only possible thanks to the assistant coaches that assist with the training. We have a senior instructor with three assistant instructors on the water and a senior instructor with assistant instructors on land to handle these volumes. The new sailors don’t always get much time on the water however with persistence these kids do improve and some of the high performance group sailors came out of this group.

Sailing Events

Sailing regattas are very important in developing the junior sailors sailing skills. However it is also a place that the transformation sailors get to broaden their horizons, meet new friends, and learn to set their expectations of life higher.

This is not an easy task as so many aspect need to be covered. Every sailor needs transport for him/her and his/her boat we also need to organise, accommodation, food and supervision. Sailing again this year has taken their sailors to many events:

Southern Cape Interschools
George Lake Yacht Club Wilderness – March 2014

Western Cape Provincials False Bay – April 2014

RS Tera Worlds Championship Sedgefield – July 2014

Southern and Eastern Cape Regional Champs Grandslam 1
Mossel Bay – October 2014

George Lake Interclub Regatta Wilderness– October 2014

Southern Charter Grandslam 2

Theewaters Kloof – December 2014

Youth Nationals Vaal dam Gauteng – December 2014

This year our Youth Nationals was held on the Vaal dam in Gauteng. This made it very difficult to transport sailors up there. It is also a very difficult time of the year as our area derives a lot of income from the holiday makers. However the pdi team of Marco Moolman and Reawon October went up to the Youth Nationals with the other Mossel Bay 420 dinghy team. We had 12 boats representing the Eden district and we ended up with four podium positions.

Southern Charter Grandslam 3 – Hermanus – January 2015

Interschools – Wilderness – March 2015