TRAINING NEWS

Ruth Mileham kindly forwarded on some excellent photos of the recent Ocean Youth Trust Scotland Voyage which 24 ELYC members took on 21/09/18.

Not content with exploring the wonders of Loch Tummel just a few weeks ago, East Lothian Yacht Club's intrepid Cadets headed across to Greenock to set sail on an Ocean Youth Trust Scotland voyage aboard Alba Venturer and Alba Explorer.

Cadets Callum Williams and Lucy Robson kindly provided us with their takes on proceedings!

Callum Williams -

Despite the Scottish weather, ELYC’s Cadets enjoyed their weekend aboard Alba Explorer starting with a short night sail from Greenock to Holy Loch.

 The following day after learning how to use the witches and after an exhausting sail hoist we had a relaxed sail to Tarbert. On the final day, the wind picked up and Alba Explorer was speeding back to Greenock averaging 10 knots upwind! 

Throughout the trip Alba Explorer achieved an impressive 95 nautical miles. Overall, it was a very enjoyable weekend and a brilliant introduction to the world of yacht sailing.

Lucy Robson - 

When coming aboard Alba Venturer our group of twelve cadets from ELYC where met by our lovely instructors for the weekend.

After a brief tour of the boat, we set of from Greenock and headed for the Holy loch! We got there at around midnight and tied up for the night. 

In the morning, to my dismay, we were awakened bright and early by the cheery face of Struan who thought we should all get up at 6:30am, but it was okay as we all laughed about it later. After managing to get one more hour of sleep in, we set off for Tarbert. On the way there the winds were good and we had some waves, although in comparison to the size of boat you couldn’t really notice them! For most of the journey some of the other cadets and I sat up the bow inside the pig pen (storage for the extra sails)

Once we made it to Tarbert we were greeted by a delicious meal cooked by our skipper. Then after dinner we took a walk up to Tarbert castle which had an amazing view down to our boat. 

Once we had gotten back down from the castle we all settled in quickly for the night as we had a long sail back to Greenock the next day.

On Sunday morning, we woke up to be greeted by the sound of the engine as the boat left the harbour. We then prepared for the long sail ahead. Unfortunately on the way back there where continuous showers of rain. Once we got back to Greenock we had our last debrief and then cleaned the whole boat before our finial departure. 

Thank you so much to all those at OYT Scotland by making this an amazing adventure or alba venture!! We learned so much about yacht sailing, all the differences between dinghys and yachts. We learned the importance of teamwork and made some good friends along the way. A final thank you to all the people who made this trip possible, the parents and Alan.

Again, huge thanks go to Alan Stewart for giving our Cadets the opportunity to experience this level of sailing! A selection of photos have been uploaded here!

Our Cadets have set the bar very high on this voyage and the pressure is now well and truly on our adult crews to do just as well when they set sail on a similar voyage towards the end of the month!

Well done to all of our cadets who made the journey to Loch Tummel on Saturday 18th August for the Scottish Club Trophy! 

Big congratulations to Sam Cowan and Rebecca Kinnie who brought home some medals! We think some of the older hands will need to watch out for this crop of youth on the start line, very soon.

A big thank you to our instructors, Will, Ellen and Eilidh, who went up for the day to support the team and the event. Thanks also to all of the parents for providing ELYC 'team buses' to get everyone there and back again safely!

Judging by the photos, everyone had a great time! Even Simon!

This year we are running a 3 day race camp from the 30th July to the 1st August. 

Head over to the Race Camp page for further details.

Junior Training Week 1 - pictures taken on 6 July 2018 by Derek Braid and, Ellen Clark (on the water).