Introducing York University Sailing & Windsurfing Club!

PlainSailing.com have been very proud to support grassrooots sailing via our University Sailing Club sponsorhip programme over the last decade (it's where our founders and a number of our team found their passion for sailing!). This year, we're genuinely thrilled to be working with a fantastic University Sailing club who are new to us: we were hugely impressed by the team at York University Sailing and Windsurfing Club, and it's great to be supporting yachting activity out in the North Sea. But enough about us - we'll let them use their own words to introduce themselves!:

The University of York Sailing and Windsurfing Club, YUSWC, is one of the smaller university sailing clubs in the UK. Sailing within the club is split into three different parts, the racers, the Beginners and Rec (B&R), and the yachters. Unusually for a university sailing club we also have a windsurfing section too.

Both the Racers and B&R do the vast majority of their sailing in Firefly dinghies, which we sail at Ripon Sailing Club. The Yachting team can be seen out on the North Sea on a variety of different boats belonging to members of the three different clubs we have contacts with. The whole club comes together for our weekly Wednesday student sports night and our end-of-the-year club trip, which this year is a yachting holiday along the Amalfi Coast with PlainSailing.com!

 Racers 

The Race team is the largest part of our club and competes on the Uni Team racing circuit - competing at five different events a year. The aim of team racing is to have a lower combined score than the team you are racing, and at university, we sail in teams of three boats with each boat being a double hander making it teams of six. The racing is hugely tactical, with boats deliberately going slowly to ‘convert’ teammates into a better position. The races are also very short, normally being less than six minutes long with a three-minute start sequence - making it all very intense. To train for these events our race team are out on the water training almost every Saturday, whatever the weather – we've been sailing amongst icebergs on the lake before!

 Beginners & Rec 

Beginners and Rec, or B and R as it is known, is for those who maybe have less sailing experience and want to get better through the instructing provided by sailors within the club who are instructors, or for those who want to sail in a more relaxed manner than the race squad. The fact the club can offer students the ability to get into the sport and get on the water for the first time is fantastic and is one of the things we’re most proud of. Through the RYA courses we run, we’re even able to get them qualifications if they so wish.

 Yachting 

Our yachting section while being the smallest part of the club, remains a key part of what we do. The majority of the sailing they do is as crew on a variety of different boats. They are constantly in contact with a range of boat owners as to crewing opportunities and as such their sailing is very much on an ad-hoc basis, but when they get the chance to get out into the heady winds of the North Sea, they grab it with both hands!

 Windsurfing 

Windsurfing is an ever-growing section of YUSWC which has experienced a real rejuvenation post covid. They travel to events around the country to windsurf and socialise with other universities, they also make frequent trips to windsurf at Yorkshire Dales Sailing Club – where there is often lots and lots of wind to windsurf in!

 Summer Sail Week! 

To finish the year the club goes on tour for a week of sailing somewhere in the Mediterranean, this year thanks to the sponsorship from PlainSailing.com it is to the Amalfi coast in beautiful Italy. It's great to be able to come together as a club for a fanatic week of sailing and fun and it will be a fantastic way to finish a year of sailing for students at the University of York.