10 May 2017
On Saturday 6th May, members of the growing Cowes fleet of RS Elites benefited from a day's coaching by Mark Rushall, the highly respected sailing coach and author, who was most recently Team Strategist for the British Sailing Team's campaign for their highly successful 2016 Games in Rio. Kindly facilitated by Martin and Amanda Wadhams, who brought their RIB over from the Hamble for the day, the session began with discussion onshore of individual objectives, followed by a tuning check which uncovered glaring comparative discrepancies, as laminated copies of the Wadhams ‘secret sauce' rig set-up were hastily consulted, before the boats departed from the Cowes Yacht Haven. The forecast Force 4-5 with overcast conditions proved well wide of the mark as sunshine licked the Island coastline and a mild Force 2-3 enabled Mark to sit in comfort on the transoms during a series of up and down wind manoeuvres. Mark's well honed style of eschewing instructions in favour of encouraging yet probing enquiries of the crew in their various positions forced everyone to articulate their thinking and yielded noticeable and immediate performance improvement. All participants admitted to huge strides in both sail and boat handling confidence and knowledge. Fleet Captain Charlie Egerton-Warburton reported that it had been a massively worthwhile event which he would be keen to repeat as the Cowes fleet welcomes new owners and would heartily recommend to others; he was also heard afloat admitting to a personal revelation that sheets are not only put to good use on beds......