Dinghy Sailing Courses in Nelson

Experience of small boat sailing transfers very well to helming larger boats. We often recommend that novices do a dinghy sailing course in order to improve their wind awareness and understanding of boat handling.

Nelson Yacht Club, through their partnership with Nelson Watersports Ltd. provide expert dinghy sailing tuition from their base on Wakefield Quay. Nelson Yacht Club Inc is New Zealand’s oldest yacht club.

Tim Fraser-Harris can be contacted on 0225487501 or info@nelsonwatersports.co.nz

Learn to Sail Courses – YNZ Level 1

The Yachting New Zealand Level 1 is run over 12 hours – either over a weekend or a series of weekday evenings.

The course is run in Topper Topaz Uno dinghies which are single-handers in groups of up to 6 students. After land drills, a demonstration and a quick couple of goes with the instructor in the boat, you are quickly ‘set free’ on your own to gain experience.

The instructor will teach from a coach boat and give you tips and pointers. You’ll learn how to launch, land, tack, gybe and recover the boat from a capsize.

Over a series of sessions your skills and technique will improve and by the end of the course you’ll hopefully be confident in helming a Topaz Uno in a gentle breeze.

Private Dinghy Sailing Tuition

If the scheduled courses don’t work for you, then you can book one-on-one sessions with an instructor. You can learn and progress at your own rate.

We can also make use of the club’s Topper Topaz Omega – a bigger boat that can fit an instructor and a couple of students comfortably. It is a more stable platform that works well for less confident students.

As instructors are often available during week days, you can get a series of 5hrs of Private Tuition for the same price as a group course.

Supervised Sailing

Once you have completed a Level 1 course, or if you have sufficient dinghy sailing experience already, you can rent the boats by the hour and join a supervised hire session. The two main sessions are Sunday afternoons 2-6pm and the ‘Tuesday Socials’ 6-8pm. Hire can happen at other times subject to the availability of the boats and instructors. Please call Tim on 0225487501 to arrange.

YNZ Level 2

The Yachting New Zealand Level 2 course is also run over 12 hours. With the basic techniques of tacking and gybing well cemented by some practise, you can start to learn how to make the boat go faster and sail more efficiently on all points of sail. The course focuses on the balance essentials and starts to introduce some basic seamanship skills and manoeuvres. This course can also be covered as on-on-one private tuition sessions.

Junior Watersports Programme

Nelson Yacht Club & Nelson Watersports also offer an extremely popular junior sailing and windsurfing programme. There are regular training sessions throughout Terms 4 & 1, and a busy summer holiday programme during January. The week-long courses have groups for different abilities from beginners right through to race coaching. More details can be found here: http://www.nelsonyachtclub.org.nz/learn-to-sail/junior-watersports-programme/