Westminster Boating Base go to sailing camp!

Westminster Boating Base is an independent, young person’s charity teaching dinghy sailing, power boating, kayaking and canoeing in central London to young people and adults. Funding from the Leader Award Grants Fund at the Jack Petchey Foundation enabled them to take some of their young people to sailing camp.

Some of the young people involved shared with us what they thought of the experience:

Alex Iachini

“My name is Alexander and this was my first time at a sailing camp. We were not a large group, just 10 people; divided in three rooms for the night. Every day we carried the boats to the shore, sailing both morning and afternoon, taking lunch breaks at the beach. We enjoyed the sea and the weather, and of course everyone enjoyed the games

It was great that we were cooking our meals ourselves, with adult supervision. One night we had a BBQ for dinner, which I enjoyed.
Instructors were very helpful and patient with us. I’ve learnt how to trapeze on a boat and the new thing for me was much stronger wind, which we had at Brightlingsea. It was quite different from our riverside sailing experience in London. I enjoyed this trip greatly and hope to do another one like this soon.”

Gabriel Sobczuk

“The trip was well organised, I learnt a lot and there honestly isn’t anything I can say negative about the overall experience. Every day was exciting and interesting. I feel like many people who often don’t cooperate very well got the hang of teamwork, so the Westminster Boating Base truly did an amazing job with this trip.
Pippa certainly took care of everyone really well, there wasn’t a time on the water we felt unsafe or out of her reach. In an environment so close to open sea, she was always there to help us out and to instruct us on what we need to do!”

Baxter McLewin-Freund

“My name is Baxter McFreund and I have been going to Westminster Boating Base for just over a year and am almost a level three in sailing. My friends Aidan, Joe, Charlie, Isaac and I come to the base on Wednesdays via the number two bus all the way from West Norwood. We really enjoy sailing and always have a laugh whenever we sail or kayak. My expectations for the Essex trip were that it would be really boring and straightforward but the reality was quite the opposite. The other sailors were nice and fun – we sailed with instructors and without, even capsizing a few times! Pippa, Louisa, and Elaina were all great instructors and when we were in their boats we always performed great sailing. The first three days were as you’d expect – we sailed, we ate lunch and it rained a lot. But the fun started on Thursday. My group capsized twice in the morning because of the unbalance of weight. During lunch, I discovered a massive stretch of extremely deep mud and it was so fun to run around and throw mud at each other. We didn’t capsize after that. I learned a lot over those five days, mainly to do with racing and I still remember a lot of it. It was so fun and I hope that I can go on more in the future and carry on sailing with WBB and in general.”