Etobicoke Yacht Club Junior Sail Program has just added to their fleet of RS Fevas as fleet racing is beginning to take off in Canada.

Etobicoke Yacht Club Junior Sail Program is a not for profit sailing school for youth aged 7 to 17 based on Lake Ontario in Canada. They run summer courses to teach sailing, and training programmes in Spring and Fall to introduce racing to young people.

In 2009, Etobicoke YC started up their RS Feva fleet to replace their home-built wooden Blue Jays. The RS Fevas transformed their season due to their reliability and low maintenance; this durability is crucial since the boats are used every day in summer months. 4 more Fevas have been added to the fleet over the last year to allow for some fleet racing to be introduced for the first time. RS Fevas have proved very popular with the learn-to-sail kids as a more exciting step up from the Oppi prams.  They can be sailed safely in a strong breeze by smaller lighter sailors and there is no need to bail when they come up from a capsize.

The EYC Junior Sail Program teaches young people to sail.  It runs a summer learn-to-sail day camp in the months of July and August in a series of two-week sessions.  The courses follow the Sail Canada CANSail curriculum and are taught by Sail Canada accredited instructors.  The introductory Wet Feet and CANSail 1 courses are taught in Oppi dinghies (a heavier plastic version of an Optimist).  Two-handed sailing is introduced in the CANSail 2 course taught in RS Fevas.

Alongside the Learn-to-Sail program EYC have a race team that trains and races at weekends in the Spring and Fall as well as daily during the summer.  The race team competes in three classes; Laser Radial, Club 420 and Optimist.  Last year for the first time RS Fevas ran as a class at a few local regattas, in 2015 we are adding the Feva formally to our race team. One Feva race team crew own their own boat and will be travelling to Germany this year to compete in the 2015 RS Feva Worlds.

2014 saw RS Fevas raced as a class in Ontario youth regattas for the first time.  There were four regattas where Fevas were given a separate start and scored as a fleet.   A typical Ontario youth dinghy regatta is held over two days with somewhere between five and ten races.  Some of the larger events have over two hundred boats competing in various classes from Optimists to 29ers. 

Three clubs with Feva fleets; Whitby Yacht Club, Etobicoke Yacht Club and Sturgeon Lake Sailing Club competed in 2014.  Other clubs in the local area have purchased Fevas to sail in 2015 and we hope to see some of them racing next year. Organisers are discussing scoring an Ontario Feva Championship based on the results from all the regattas for 2015, and adding Feva starts to other regattas as bigger fleets are expected to enter.

To find out more about the range at RS or for information about how you can get involved at Etobicoke Yacht Club Junior Sail Program click here.

Original article from Live on the Water Blog http://www.rssailing.com/ca