Donaghadee Sailing Club in Northern Ireland recently signed up to become an OnBoard club, as part of the RYA’s grassroots programme to get young people aged 8-18 into sailing and windsurfing.

With the club in the focus of RYA’s Spotlight series this month, Commodore Steve Dickson explains the motivations behind the move.

“Since the club participated in the pilot scheme of the Bright Nights Programme a number of years ago, it was an obvious step to make the jump, getting further resources into our hands to reintroduce our scheme post-Covid,” he says.

OnBoard at Donaghadee has brought about a “fun and informal” youth sailing training environment since last August as pandemic restrictions eased.

“We’ve ambitious plans to have another pre-Covid year again like 2019 with almost 100 new junior/family members, and our multiple Friday evening sailing sessions booked out,” Dickson says.

“We all long for those carefree balmy summers evenings again, the buzz around the club, our beautiful harbour and Donaghadee sound full of young people having fun on our fleet of Toppers and Picos.”

That’s not to mention “the safety boat crews teased by the BBQ in the courtyard wafting the smell of the fresh Jim Davenport burgers in their direction as the food and social evening gets going with the sailors and families from the first of three sessions”.

While first moves in 2021 were tentative, as the programme was only open to existing members and their families, Dickson says the club plans development training with its instructors to prepare them as things ramp up in 2022.

As what what's next for Donaghadee as an OnBoard centre? Dickson is excited for the future: “Opening back to our wonderful local community again in 2022, both for our Friday BNS sailing, school and youth groups, exploiting the resources and training opportunities available from the OnBoard scheme.”