Sailing Coach Course Level 1

 I decided to go to a course to train to be a level 1 sailing coach which specifies in mostly racing boats such as The Optimist, ILCA and Windsurfing. It was 5 days long and the programme was packed. It's been such a long time since I've attended anything like this. It was tiring but it was so much fun. I met so many people from everywhere.

The first person I met was a guy seated at the same table as I did. His name was Arief and he was from Outward Bound Malaysia in Lumut. He sails the Weller keel boat. He takes groups of between 8-10 people sailing around Pangkor island. I'd like to do that someday and I do love monohulls big and small.

The, 2 more people joined our group. Zu and Afizall from the Malaysian Scouts in KL. They usually sail on Sundays at Port Klang with other scout members and they usually sail as crew on board a keel boat. I can't remember which boat it is but it's a monohull as well. 

The, more people showed up in the seminar room. We had some teachers from Kelantan, a coach from Selangor or N9. A bunch of UMT sailing club students. One guy was from the scouts in Terengganu. Others were sailors from the same sailing club I'm in. 

Most of us were beginner sailors. It was funny coz I was just thinking to myself that I haven't seen coach in a long while coz he's been busy and I haven't been sailing and he's been teaching us at the course for 5 days straight 😂 Coach Affendy was also the other coach who flew over from the Kedah sailing club. 

I can tell that I have probably screwed up my theory exam at this point because, I always have problems understanding questions just like how I failed my driving theory test numerous times back in the day. For the most part, I did learn so much especially when it came to safety preparations and briefing and debriefing. I also almost fell overboard from the 470 twice. I didn't 😅

This was so much fun and I managed to get to know more sailors which was super useful especially from the UMT sailing club coz they sail together with the kids from the club I'm in whenever we practice at Duyong Marina Resort 😊

BEST. DAY. EVER!!!

 I was woken up by Shu yesterday morning. He asked me if I was up for a beginner's sailing class today. I said hell yeah!

The class started at about 10am. I was up just before 6am coz I've been having trouble sleeping. I was also super excited and super anxious at the same time. Kids were already up by 7am. We had breakfast and got ready. The kids were super excited coz I was going to school today 😂

We got to Duyong Marina Resort at about 9am. The kids and Shu had breakfast over at Bytes Cafe and then they sent me off to class. We were doing a few knots at first. Practising over and over. The facilitators were from UMT. They have a community sailing club at the marina. We then learned about the boat parts and how to control the boats as you sail. 

The bigger kids and adults like me had to learn to sail from using a wind surfing board. We have to know how to control the sail and balance ourselves on the board while steering it into the direction we were headed. I failed the first couple of times from Just falling into the water because the sail got heavy and I was too caught up with the technicality of the whole thing. I got up and about after a few tries. I also almost drowned from falling into the water and having the sail fall on top of me.

The thing we were taught to do was to NOT PANIC. That helped. The facilitators were freaking out a little but I got up. We had a break between 1pm to 3pm. That gave me time to go home and shower and got changed and pray and then headed back to the marina. This time I fell so many more times over but I got a different coach and he taught me a few tricks to handling the sail and board without using up so much energy. I was sailing and in control in no time.

Oh yeah, Yusuf got invited to join a facilitator on a boat. He learned a thing or two about sailing. If he's interested, Shu and I are planning to get him signed up for the proper sailing classes which I shall be joining myself as well.

I had a blast. I am burnt and tanned and my left knee has a bruising and my left ankle has a painful cut. My hands are sore and somewhat blistered from pulling the ropes but I enjoyed myself so much. Shu bought me the guide to sailing book by lecturers from UMT and I had them both sign my copy coz they were also there. The main coach today was Mr. Rani who trains kids for the sailing championships. He's so awesome.