Gaining important experience and learning new skills was at the heart of Youth Sailing Week in Largs.

This year’s event which ran from August 5-9 had 24 kids from 8-16 years old on the water to learn and improve their dinghy sailing.

A quarter of the kids that attended the course had little or no sailing experience, so this was their first time in a sailing dinghy. The rest of the kids had various experiences, mostly from the season-long Thursday night cadets.

The week was coordinated by Yuan Wong as Senior Instructor, with Jamie Briggs, Eva Farnell, Josh Howe and Lachlan Davis as dinghy instructors, and Cameron McDaid, Kate Shelley, Finlay Briggs and Robbie Woods as assistant instructors.

(Image: Yuan Wong)

The weather was varied throughout the whole week, with everything from flat calm to 28 knot gusts, and heavy rain to sunny blue skies.

Both the instructors and kids did a great job in the challenging weather conditions and got out on the water every day in various possible ways, and only missed out on sailing on the Wednesday due to the strong winds.

They used a whole range of dinghies through the week – Teras, Q’bas, Fevas, and Visions, plus some of the kids also took out their own Toppers.

(Image: Yuan Wong)

On Thursday, there was the annual sailing trip over to Cumbrae, in 4 Visions and 3 Fevas, landing on the beach just outside the old Watersports Centre.

After a picnic lunch, they played some games, did some litter picking on the beach, and had fun with a treasure hunt set up by some of the instructors.

(Image: Yuan Wong)

At the end of the week all the kids left happy, and the kids that had never sailed before went away with their RYA Youth Sailing Scheme Stage 1, and the more intermediate/advanced kids managed to tick off more boxes in their logbooks.

Text and photos from Yuan Wong.