Delight as North Devon Yacht Club wins prestigious national award

North Devon Yacht Club at Instow is this year’s winner of the Royal Yachting Association’s (RYA) Award for Young Persons.

Club manager Eric Evans said winning the national award ‘was a really nice surprise’ and marks ‘a real turning point’ for the club.

The club, which runs youth training sessions during the school summer holidays and skill building sessions on Sundays throughout the year, won the award due to the ‘heroic work’ selflessly carried out by the volunteer team, said Mr Evans.

He said it was all down to the dedicated volunteers who have worked extremely hard for several years, and without whom the cadet training programme ‘would have folded years ago’.

“Then there are volunteers maintaining the boats, without them the boats wouldn’t be on the water at all,” he said.

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Another team of volunteers serve lunches and hold social events throughout the year which helps raise funds for the club.

The Young Pirate group, which is free to join and caters for children from ages five to 10-years-old, started three years ago due entirely to volunteer work.

Young Pirates members described the club as ‘fun’ and said ‘all the Assistant Instructors are really nice’. They also described it as ‘inclusive’ and ‘a family environment’. They said they learned ‘teamwork’, ‘communication’ and ‘how to rig a sail’.

Parent co-ordinator Celia Braund felt the award was gained partly due to the club establishing a youth committee, giving representation and a voice to the young people themselves.

The award was presented to club representatives in London this year at the RYA Dinghy Show, with a citation reading: ‘in recognition of your work to foster opportunities for young people to develop a passion for boating by encouraging participation, skill development and progress, with special recognition for developing your youth activity and increasing your membership’.

Mr Evans outlined the unique skill building opportunities the club provides at a young age. He said: “We’ve got some of our assistant instructors of 13-years-old supporting instructors leading groups of cadets to do their training.

“At such a young age, they are building huge amounts of communication skills, building on their patience and developing teaching and presentation skills that will transfer to any job.

“People get out into the world, they get fresh air and exercise, they develop healthy habits and sailing is a skill that is physically and mentally challenging. It’s really good for people but it also forces a lot of collaboration and teamwork.”

While a membership fee is usually charged for sailing courses, there is a bursary grant scheme for those who need it. Mr Evans said he wanted to ensure more people were aware of the grant, and added, “we don’t want money to be a barrier. We offer financial assistance on a case-by-case basis for adults and kids.”

Club Principal Jonathan Miles said they had taken ‘a big step’ recently to employ a paid club management team of three staff and increased pay for all instructors, assistant instructors and coaches.

The club now has well over 800 active members. The Youth Squad membership increased six-fold between 2022 and 2024 to well over 200 junior members, supported by a dedicated volunteer admin team and paid instructors.

Parents Rachel and Rob Blackmore said their daughter loved it: “We’re grateful to the club, which provided free classes at weekends and we’re delighted at how much it helped her confidence. She came back buzzing after a week, and asked to do a second week.

“We were also delighted by the brilliant tutors and the way the children were able to be taught by their peer group, and had great respect for them. It’s just brilliant.”

If you would like to find out more about North Devon Yacht Club or to enrol, please visit https://ndyc.org