Ladies 420 Program

Hello Ladies!

We are really tickled to have a program in place now for RYC’s Ladies - yep that’s us! RYC has 4 Club 420′s available for our use. We choose the 420 because it is a more stable and comfortable boat, easy to manuever in, and yet has both a spinnaker and a trapeze. We also use FJ’s now!

Goals of our Ladies 420 Program

Have a tremendous amount of fun
Develop and build our sailing skills in a very friendly, supportive and safe environment with one of the Bay Area’s Top Sailing Coaches – Dan Brandt
Meet and hang out with some amazing women
Learn how to fly the kite (chute, spinnaker, the crazy sail) – Good Heavens!
Learn how to trapeze – OMG are we insane or something?
Potentially do some racing together – Could be a hoot!

This is how our Ladies 420 Group started: I had spent a fair amount of time watching our high school kids practicing and racing with RYC’s Coach, Dan Brandt this past Fall. It looked like so much fun and I really liked Dan’s approach with them. In fact, the kids were having such a blast that it made me really want to sail too. So I started thinking that maybe some of the other Moms would like to join in the fun as well. As soon as Dan agreed to take on the Moms, we put the word out and 9 Moms jumped on board immediately. It took a while to figure out where he could fit us in, but we did it and the Ladies 420 Group began. We have all ranges of skill and ability in our group, but the common element we all share is the desire to learn to sail and we’re having a ball doing it.

To join our group – contact Dan Brandt at dan.higherfastervmg@gmail.com or me – Linda Hanafee (Quinn) at lhanafee@welchs.com . We currently have all skill levels, so whether you are a beginner or a very experienced sailor, you’ll get a kick out of our classes.

Classes run from 9am to 12:00 (with de-rigging taking place generally after 12:00). The cost is $270 per session and each session consists of 6 classes. Here is the schedule for our next session (Session 3):

June 9 2012
June 23 2012
July 21 2012
August 11 2012
August 18 2012
September 8 2012

Left: at Coach Dan’s insistence, we posed for yet another group photo…Bunny Ears were optional but encouraged… Right: Learning to trapeze is next on our list! Very, very fun!

Left: Are we looking snazzy in our team sweatshirts or what? Right: Dan has a white board outside for better chalk talks. This talk centered around the plan for the morning – doing the “Box Drill” (which we rocked…) and rudderless sailing.

Left picture: Dan is showing us some rigging tips. Right picture: We’re getting ready to pair up and head out.

Left picture: A group shot with Dan after one of our lessons – lots of smiles! Right picture: Just pretend those are soda pops in our hands. And yes, we do look like a cute group of drowned rats. We sailed the whole time in the rain and believe it or not – had a ball!

Left picture: Dan talking to us about sail trim, handling puffs and the vang. Right picture: After each lesson we de-rig the boats and have a debrief. This is when we ask a lot of questions, talk about what went well that day, and then what we want to cover the next time. Afterwards we sometimes hang around for a bit, exchanging stories…just like the old salts. It’s pretty funny.

Both pictures are from our July 30th class. This was the first time any of us have set and flown chutes in this boat. It was quite the adrenaline rush…who needs Starbucks when you can just go sailing instead! The Ladies were hooting and hollering after this lesson!