The school on Church Quay
Two instructors, seven boats and one slipway on the Flushing side of the harbour. We have been here since 2011 and we have never grown out of it.
Ellen and Tom
Ellen learned in a borrowed Mirror on the Helford and has been an RYA instructor for eighteen years. She teaches the dinghy courses and runs the junior weeks, and she is the one who will be shouting cheerfully at you from the safety boat.
Tom came to it late, through a season of delivery work in the Western Approaches. He takes the keelboat, most of the Day Skipper weeks and the private days for people who already own a boat and want to stop being frightened of it.
We bought the first two Wayfarers in 2011, taught eleven people that summer, and have run the school between the two of us ever since. Nobody else takes your boat out.
Why three to a boat
A Wayfarer will take five people. We put three students in it, and that decision costs us money every summer.
The boats
Seven of them, all kept on the quay or on the mooring off it, and all old enough to have names people remember.
Falmouth is a kind place to learn
The harbour is deep, sheltered by the Roseland on one side and the town on the other, and big enough that you can sail for an hour without leaving water we know well. On a bad day there is always somewhere flat to work in.
How the school grew
Slowly, and mostly by buying one boat at a time when a season had gone well.
Two second-hand Wayfarers, an RYA recognition certificate and eleven students between April and September.
The first RS Quest arrives and the junior summer weeks start. They sell out in the second year and have every year since.
The 27-foot keelboat joins the school and Tom starts teaching Day Skipper practical from Church Quay.
The hut is rebuilt after a winter gale takes the roof off. Drying room, kettle, and a rack that fits every buoyancy aid we own.
Come and see the place
If you are in Falmouth and want to look at the boats before you book, come over on the ferry and find us on the quay. We are usually there in the morning.