Training
FlexiSail is a fully accredited RYA Training School
FlexiSail is a fully accredited RYA Training Centre. We focus solely on providing a fully supported, fun and integrated membership and training solution to ensure that you train at your own pace.
We believe that as a member you should have access to the best possible one-to-one RYA training and that it should be carried out on your own FlexiSail boat. Training is the key to your overall enjoyment and fundamental to achieving competency and confidence both for you and those around you.
Ours is a nurturing, hand-holding process for those that appreciate it, whilst those more experienced and well-qualified skippers have access to a whole tier of higher level bespoke and RYA training. The one factor that you quickly learn is that you never stop meeting different situations and there is always something to learn!
The value of personal high quality RYA training is invaluable. You will learn from our instructors, who are all Yachtmaster Instructors at the top of their profession. They are able to relate to you, identify where they can best help you, and then deliver it. When this is delivered on your own FlexiSail boat the benefits are magnified further still.
We offer members FREE Skills days
These are supplementary fun training programmes, limited to 4 members and an RYA Instructor. These include:
Man Overboard Recovery
Days Ladies Only Training Events
Mile Building
Night Pilotage and Night Sailing
Sail Handling and Sail Trim Days
Boat Handling Days
Working with FlexiSail since 2014 as an instructor, my teaching style is very relaxed and friendly. I’m keen to give the background knowledge, a good demonstration, then give plenty of time for practice and consolidation, followed by engaging debriefs and guidance on the next steps.
My background: I have sailed since I could walk, my father was a very relaxed Yachtmaster instructor too…what choice did I have! As a child I started in Oppies, Toppers and then Enterprises with numerous trips on my father’s Sadler 34. I began my journey through the RYA cruising scheme as a teenager and passed my Yachtmaster Offshore in my early twenties, followed a year later by becoming an instructor, and 13 years after that I was invited by the RYA to become an Examiner. I really love teaching, however, there is a rumour that I also enjoy cruising, delivering yachts, and have been known to skipper race yachts on Round the Island races, Fastnet campaigns and several two-handed offshore events.
This all happened whilst I completed an apprenticeship as a master craftsman in furniture. Following that, during my mid 20’s, I moved from furniture to the Ambulance Service as an EMT, then to the Frailty Support Team based in Lymington, keeping frail elderly people out of hospital and safely at home. I am currently taking on my second apprenticeship as a Nursing degree student which I hope to complete in 2027.
As if all that wasn’t enough…I am a husband, a father of 21-year-old twin girls, companion to a rather dependent elderly cockerpoo and a nutty young black lab. I am a vegan, a keen cyclist and runner, and a bicycle mechanic…phew…that’ll do!
I have been an RYA Cruising Instructor since 2017 and an RYA Powerboat Instructor since 2022. I first learned to sail in dinghies and developed a lasting passion for the water as I progressed to yachts, completing both my Day Skipper and Yachtmaster Offshore training.
I genuinely enjoy teaching and helping people get the very best out of their time afloat. My relaxed, patient style allows me to explain and demonstrate even the trickiest manoeuvres with confidence and clarity.
Having enjoyed shared boat ownership myself, I understand the excellent opportunities it offers. I particularly love working with novice skippers and crew, helping them hone their skills in a friendly and encouraging environment.
Introduced to sailing as a toddler, I grew up learning to sail around Carmathen Bay on a gaffer – with no engine. The exploits and mischief of which remain with that then adolescent crew!
Navigation was taught at the dining table and practised at sea – no Decca or GPS then. Later, through cadets, I learnt to manoeuvre an RAF Air Sea Rescue pinnace under the watchful eye of the cockswain. Use of radar at sea and steering by gyro compass also practised on that vessel.
The midlife balance of career and play enabled time for some ocean sailing, offshore and inshore racing, all under sail. I found time to instruct, examine and sail large, engineless, yachts. Got to sail with some of the early Whitbread skippers and navigators.
Although I have taught and examined since early life, I now prefers the formative activity of instructor and has held a chief instructor position and trained the trainer. I thoroughly enjoys teaching theory and the human capital aspects of coaching and teaching afloat.
I love being on the water, whether kayaking, wind-surfing, sailing, water-skiing or cruising
across the English Channel or to the West Country. Most of my experience has been with powerboats, ranging from Speedboats and RIBs up to larger cabin cruisers.
Professionally, I have been developing and delivering training throughout my career and in recent years, have combined this with my passion for boating. I am an RYA commercially qualified powerboat skipper and instructor and can teach powerboat level 1 up to advanced, as well as Day Skipper motor which is great for those wishing to cruise a little further.
Boating is meant to be fun, but can sometimes be a little daunting, especially when in larger boats for the first time. My aim when teaching is to remove all stress, start with the basics and layer on new techniques at the right pace for each individual.