Cadet and Family Sessions
These weekly sessions are offered to members either on a Friday evening or Saturday depending on the tide. Weekly cadet session are a great way of having fun and learning in a relaxed environment. The emphasis is on safe and fun sailing under the direction of an instructor. These sessions are ideal for giving children time on the water to put into practice what they have learned from a RYA course and to develop their ability towards the next level.
There is a nominal charge of £100 per cadet (£80 for siblings) for the season to cover costs, including our Assistant instructor development programme. An additional £8 for club boat hire, per session as needs to be paid for weekly as well. Clothing can be borrowed from us for a fee of £1 per item per session.
Please make sure your child is signed in with a parent or appropriate adult. Over 14’s can sign themsleves in and out providing they can rig, launch recover and pack away by themselves.
Parents are encouraged to stay around for the whole session to help, including getting wet, sometimes up to the waist. This is a fab way of learning a new skill as well as helping your child.
The sesions are structed as follows: A breifing will start things off so you know what we will be doing on the water and to meet your sailing partnet, then get changed and rig your boat, now we are ready for going on the water. We will be out for about 1h 15 minutes, then come back in, have a debreif, pack your boat away then get changed.
Please see the Sailing Schedule for dates and times depending on tide and daylight.
Cadetfest
Four days of sailing with long distance cruises, racing, kayaking, mini Olympics & raft building but most of all a week of fun.
11th/12th & 14th/15th August 2025.
Cadets need to be a WYC member, and have attained RYA stage 2, and attended at least 6 cadet sessions prior to Cadetfest to participate.
Youth Sailing Events at WYC
To support the progression of the young sailors at Whitstable Yacht Club we host a number of events throughout the year, and we encourage our sailors to visit youth events at other clubs. Including KSSA who do a variety of training throughout the year.
In 2025 WYC are hosting the Topper London and South east open training on Saturday 10th May and traveller racing on the Sunday 11th May.
Instructor development
WYC is proud to support instructor development for all those who show the skills to teach. We start with our assistant instructor programme at age 14. This goes through all the policies and procedures of how we operate at our training centre. We also teach each candidate to do drills on the simulator as well as setting up and closing down a powerboat. Once they have completed 16h of training they will then be able to get paid.
We also try to facilitate a dinghy instructor course (either at WYC or at another local club) for those who want to take their teaching further and to be able to teach a variety of courses.
After Dinghy instructor is the Senior instructor course – again we try to facilitate this wherever possible.
For more information about RYA instructor courses please see: https://www.rya.org.uk/club-centre-support/training/qualifications/dinghy
Cadet and Family Sessions
These weekly sessions are offered to members either on a Friday evening or Saturday depending on the tide. Weekly cadet session are a great way of having fun and learning in a relaxed environment. The emphasis is on safe and fun sailing under the direction of an instructor. These sessions are ideal for giving children time on the water to put into practice what they have learned from a RYA course and to develop their ability towards the next level.
There is a nominal charge of £100 per cadet (£80 for siblings) for the season to cover costs, including our Assistant instructor development programme. An additional £8 for club boat hire, per session as needs to be paid for weekly as well. Clothing can be borrowed from us for a fee of £1 per item per session.
Please make sure your child is signed in with a parent or appropriate adult. Over 14’s can sign themsleves in and out providing they can rig, launch recover and pack away by themselves.
Parents are encouraged to stay around for the whole session to help, including getting wet, sometimes up to the waist. This is a fab way of learning a new skill as well as helping your child.
The sesions are structed as follows: A breifing will start things off so you know what we will be doing on the water and to meet your sailing partnet, then get changed and rig your boat, now we are ready for going on the water. We will be out for about 1h 15 minutes, then come back in, have a debreif, pack your boat away then get changed.
Please see the Sailing Schedule for dates and times depending on tide and daylight.
Cadetfest
Four days of fun with sailing included. Each day’s progframme is diffrent with long distance cruises, fleet and team racing, kayaking/ paddleboarding, windsurfing team games & raft building! but most of all a week of fun.
2025 dates: Monday 11th & Tuesday 12th & Thursday 14th Friday 15th August.
Cadets need to be WYC member’s, and have attained RYA stage 2, we also ask that they have attended at least 6 cadet sessions prior to Cadetfest to participate. This is to make it fair on regular attendees, and that everyone is at a good sailing standard to enjoy the week.
