While GHYC’s main training motto has always been to have fun while teaching sailing in a safe and beautiful environment, GHYC is an Irish Sailing(IS) registered training centre and runs a very comprehensive range of IS training courses every Summer (July & August) ranging from a Taste of Sailing for the very young beginners (minimum age 9) to the comprehensive advanced courses such as Kites & Wires, Adventure and Go Racing. These courses use a mixture of the club fleet of 19 sailing dinghies and privately owned boats (eg Topper Topaz, Laser, RS Feva) and are run by a highly motivated team of IS trained instructors.
These courses follow a very structured IS syllabus details of which are on the Irish Sailing website and are a progressive series of courses designed to build up a complete set of sailing skills over time, usually 5-6 seasons. Juniors begin with the Start Sailing Module (minimum age = 10), followed by Basic Skills, followed by Improving Skills. Then they move up to Advanced Boat Handling which can be followed by any (or all) of the Advanced modules mentioned above. In this way they develop a complete set of sailing skills.
As the sailors progress there is more emphasis on experience and the sailors are encouraged to take part in dinghy racing in the evenings and at weekends which then allows them to progress to sail in the Dragon and Squib class racing in the club.
In addition to the Irish Sailing courses, the club works with the local primary schools during the month of June and every Wednesday evening during the Summer to enhance their skills. Many of these pupils then enrol on the Irish Sailing courses which run during the school Holidays.
GHYC also runs courses for Adults in the Summer to take adults (often parents of juniors) through the sailing basics in our new RS Quest dinghies or Squib keel boats which are a little larger and more comfortable!
And finally GHYC is also an IS accredited Powerboat Training Centre and we run 2-day Powerboat courses throughout the Summer, primarily for adults (minimum age is 16).
The provisional course programme for 2024 is now available to view HERE remember that courses book up quickly and that Membership Renewal needs to be done prior to booking the courses.
GHYC
Irish Sailing Course Organiser
Kevin Percy