Yesterday, World Sailing brought a group of aspirant international Sail Training Program Managers to the RS Sailing stand at the Southampton Boat Show. The marine trade visit was part of their annual seven-week Training Scholarship program which is run in conjunction with the Andrew Simpson Sailing Centre in Weymouth.
The scholarship is a seven-week residential programme, designed to develop the skills of practising coaches or those individuals already working in a training manager capacity. The aim is for participants to lead the development of a National Training Programme and train the next cohort of instructors and coaches within their National Federation. This year, the candidates are from Andorra, Brazil, St Lucia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania. The group, accompanied by World Sailing staff, met with key trade partners at the show, including RS Sailing.
UK Sales Manager, Steve Wilson, provided an introduction to the company along with a walk-round and overview of the boats on the stand. He highlighted which boats are World Sailing Classes and have an active racing programs; the RS Tera, RS Feva, RS Aero and RS21.
Training & Fleet Sales Coordinator, Jake Elsbury, then took over and gave a talk on the ‘Learn to Sail’ specifics of the boats in the range. This focused on the RS Tera, RS Zest, RS Neo, RS Feva, RS Quest and RS Toura. They were also shown how the RS Venture Connect can be adapted to suit both able bodied and disabled sailors. While the Cat 16 was not featured on the stand this year, it was set-up in the ‘On The Water Zone’ behind! Candidates could see it in action as it was sailed by Boat Show attendees with Rockley Watersports.
The visit rounded-off with a Q&A session with both Steve and Jake, and Commercial Director Michiel Geerling joining in on the fun.
“World Sailing is grateful for the chance for our Scholarship attendees to meet with RS Sailing at the Southampton Boat Show once again. This meeting provides the attendees the valuable opportunity to view and understand the vast range of RS Sailing boats available, to help with the development of Learn to Sail, Pathways, Para Sailing and Performance sailing worldwide. The attendees can see first-hand the equipment on offer and how it could impact training in their nations.”
Catherine Duncan, Training & Development Executive at World Sailing.
