Plain sailing doesn’t have to cost a fortune
Last updated 00:07, Tuesday, 08 April 2008
All you need to know about yachting in Cumbria: IF YOU’VE always fancied yourself as another Sir Francis Chichester or Dame Ellen MacArthur but have assumed that sailing is a difficult and expensive sport to get into, think again.
There are clubs and marinas throughout Cumbria where you can learn the ropes at relatively little cost – and you don’t even have to be particularly fit to take part.
Cedric Entwistle-Brown, 37, a senior Royal Yachting Association instructor who works at Nichol End Marine on Derwentwater, says he learned to sail the old-fashioned way – “by getting a boat and getting a book”.
“But by the time I got to the chapter on capsizing,” he says, “the pages of the book were stuck together because I was upside down in the water at the time. It’s not ideal.”
Today, people either enrol on courses or join a club.
“After a five-hour introductory course over two days, most people are in a position where they understand the basics and can go out and make mistakes by themselves,” says Cedric.
Such courses cost £132 at Nichol End, but prices differ from lake to lake and from marina to marina.
Basic safety equipment, such as buoyancy aids, will normally be provided by the course provider, and, if you’re learning in a single-handed dinghy, you might also be provided with a wet suit.
“Alternatively, by joining a club, you pay a one-off fee to join – and sometimes a little extra to cover the costs of the person running the course – and then go for coaching on a weekly basis.
“Most clubs have one day a week where they concentrate on teaching. For a club to survive, it has to teach people to sail.”
Membership fees vary and, in Cumbria, can be anything from £60 to several hundred pounds, depending on the club’s facilities.
Of course, if you want to splash out on buying your own boat, the sky’s the limit. A basic, second-hand dinghy can cost as little as £400 or you can save up for the 286ft Maltese Falcon, the largest sailing yacht in the world, which will set you back a cool £60 million.
Dame Ellen herself bought her first humble dinghy by saving up her dinner money over three years. Today, she sails around the globe, breaking yachting records, in multi-million pound vessels.
ON top of the cost of the boat, there are also mooring or storage fees, which depend on the marina or club and the size of the vessel.
The cost of basic equipment, however, has actually fallen in recent years, according to Cedric.
“Sailing is shaking of its image of exclusivity and becoming much more real world,” he says. “All the equipment, things like wet suits, have been the same price for nearly ten years, so, effectively, they’ve come down in price.”
You don’t need to be particularly fit or strong to take up sailing.
“A lot of it is about technique and getting the drill correct,” says Cedric. “No individual element of it is that difficult to grasp, but when you first start there are quite a lot of things that you need to learn almost immediately.
“You learn to set your sail, holding the rope in one hand and the tiller in the other. Then when it comes to turn around, you’ve got to remember the drill for switching hands. People tend to get tangled up because there are so many little things to remember.
“That’s why we break up the five-hour course – you’ll do 90 minutes, come in for a break, give your brain a chance to defry, then go out again for another 90 minutes to reinforce what you learned earlier. Then, on the second day, you move on from the basics and learn things like jetty landings.”
Age needn’t be a barrier either, although older people or people with reduced mobility may prefer larger, more sedate craft to the tiny dinghies you see nipping about on the lakes throughout the summer.
“Children tend to learn better in small, single-handed dinghies,” says Cedric. “But larger boats are slower and have more space, so if you don’t change sides in time, it’s not necessarily the end of the world.”
It’s that easy – and, sometimes, that cheap. So, what’s stopping you from living your dream?
SAILING CLUBS
Ullswater Yacht Club near Pooley Bridge (reopens Saturday, March 15) - www.ullswateryachtclub.org.
Bassenthwaite Sailing Club at Dubwath at the northern end of the lake – phone 017687 76341 or visit www.bassenthwaite-sc.org.uk.
Coniston Sailing Club, just south of Coniston village – phone 01539 441580 or visit www.conistonsailingclub.co.uk.
Vanguard Sailing Club in Workington - www.vanguard-workington.co.uk.
Whitehaven Sailing and Boating Association – phone 01946 65973 or visit www.wsandba.co.uk.
Annandale Sailing Club at Lochmaben near Lockerbie – phone 01461 40581 or visit www.annansail.co.uk.
Local marinas and small businesses offering lessons:
Nichol End Marine at Portinscale, near Keswick – phone 017687 73082 or visit www.nicholendmarine.co.uk.
Derwent Water Marina at Portinscale, near Keswick – phone 01768 772912 or visit www.derwentwatermarina.co.uk.
Platty Plus has a base near the Lodore Falls Hotel in Borrowdale – phone 01768 776572 or visit www.plattyplus.co.uk.
Glenridding Sailing Centre at Gleridding –phone 01768 482541 or visit www.lakesail.co.uk.
Low Wood Watersports Centre in Windermere – phone 01539 439441 or visit www.elh.co.uk/watersports.
