Salcombe Yacht Club ladies keep on sailing

The Ladies that Launch (LTL) group at Salcombe Yacht Club (SYC) has just celebrated its tenth anniversary – not quite in the way originally intended, but simply by getting back on the water successfully after the spring lockdown. Jayne Morris, who works as Sailing Co-ordinator at SYC, has volunteered with LTL since the beginning. As soon as she had been unfurloughed and started getting boats back on the water for the cadets, she attended one of the RYA #returntoboating webinars to help with the club planning. “It was very helpful,” she explains. “It gave us confidence that we could make a plan that was possible and safe. I worked with the Sailing Committee and one of our cadet volunteers to make it happen.” Helped by Sailing Development Officer Stuart Jones, Jayne ran a trial session with the LTL in order to produce operating procedures for small group sailing and conduct a new risk assessment, which was further trialled and amended over the next few weeks. “The first ladies’ sessions helped us to understand how to make other sessions safe,” she says. “Everything takes more time, but slow is smooth, and smooth is fast!” Whilst six members of the original LTL group remain, each year there’s a different core of ladies who benefit from the boost in confidence that makes them feel comfortable in the club and in racing. “It serves as a lovely introduction to the club,” says Jayne. “I’m really grateful to Ursula who runs the WhatsApp group, boosting excitement every week about everyone getting together to sail in safety and freedom. “One of our ladies, who has been coming for the last ten years, had a complete knee replacement last year and thought she’d never dinghy sail again. But being able to do a short 20-minute session to start, she could build up her confidence and flexibility.” Other women have benefited from this close-knit group when dealing with rehabilitation or bereavement. And ironically enough, while LTL has a very specific energy about it, there isn’t anything similar for men who are just returning to the sport: “A couple of our ladies asked if their husbands could come to sail and help in the safety boat. They were nervous about returning to boating, so it became a bit of a joke to give the men ladies’ names, so they could come along too! Now they’ve gained confidence in a quieter estuary, and though we’ll continue Ladies that Launch midweek sessions, next year, covid allowing, we’ll add a Friday social sailing session to have everyone together (hopefully with social distancing up on the terrace for a drink afterwards).” SYC itself was due to celebrate its 125th anniversary this year – something it’s planning to do next year instead. In the meantime, however, it has a very spacious clubhouse, which has helped enormously with the implementation of safety measures and the resulting ability to keep activity going well into October. Jayne says: “I’m grateful for the continued RYA updates which help the club work within the most recent government guidelines. All safety measures are in place and everyone has been following the rules very carefully.” As the sailing winds down for the winter, the club is organising rambles with soup back at the clubhouse afterwards. These are popular especially with retired members for whom the friendship is a crucial part of their participation, and will, with luck, get everyone through to a much better boating season next year. It may have been a low-key celebration, limited season, and a very cautious return to boating for the Ladies that Launch, but Jayne reports that it’s been a very visible success: “It has been a great spectacle for everyone onshore to have the boats back on the water – it’s uplifting for everyone, including the non-sailors, and you see people pause on the shore to look. We had planned to have a Ladies Day, all wearing hats, to celebrate our tenth anniversary, but actually the fact that we’re still going through all this is enough for us.”