Frensham Pond - Volvo RYA Champion Club

Frensham Pond was one of the first clubs in 1999 to become a Champion Club. This was recognition of many years of teaching youngsters to sail and race at top flight.

This now means that we:

Provide a structure Junior Race Programme in RYA recognised junior classes. In our case these classes are Cadets and Laser Radials.
Provide regular class specific racing and coaching.
Develop youngsters enthusiasm and talent and encourage and support their development so that as many as possible gain places in the Volvo RYA Junior and Youth Development Programmes.
Encourage youngsters to attend training at other clubs and take part in Zone Qualifiers, Open and National Class Association and RYA events.

... in other words the route to the top!

A measure of our success is that we currently have five Cadet teams in the 2003 National Squad and three teams in the South Zone Squad.

One longer term measurement would be that in 2002, Frensham Pond had five National Championship winners, all of whom were Cadets at Frensham a few years ago and in fact still race here. You almost couldn't get better coaches!

'Best place to learn about what the wind does'
Roger Gilbert
RS400 and Endeavour Trophy National Champion

'Couldn't be better for youngsters to start racing'
Nick Craig
OK and Enterprise National Champion

'I really appreciate the encouragement, interest and support given to me from an early age by the Club and its members. I feel it has played an important role in the development of my sailing'
Andrea Brewster
Europe National Champion and Pre-Olympic Regatta sailor

The Champion Club scheme is divided into two age bands, these are Juniors, in our case sailing Cadets, and Youth who are encouraged to sail Laser Radials (single-handed). Youngsters tend to move from one band to the other at about 16 years.

The Club also recognises that not everyone will be in a Squad and may just want to race at home. Also, when Juniors move to the Youth section, they may want to continue to sail a double-hander and in this case we would encourage youngsters to continue to sail at Frensham in a range of boats, especially the Club Larks because of this is the class of dinghy used by most universities.