Bexhill Sailing Club has a well established Cadet Section. We meet on a Thursday evening at 6 from early April until September and sail as often as possible. Bexhill caters for Cadets as family members from the age of 10 and Cadet only membership from the age of 12.

Bexhill has 6 Toppers, 6 Topaz, 6 Laser 2000’s, 1 Dart 16 and 1 RS Feva available for sail training and use by Cadets but many Cadets own their own boats, the majority being Toppers.

Although we have several RYA qualified sailing instructors involved with Cadets, the emphasis at Cadets on Thursdays is learning to sail in a safe and fun environment – we offer informal instruction rather than structured RYA courses, and frequently have 50 Cadets on the water during the evening. For the more competitive sailor we also have a 10 week Race Training course on a Friday evening. The numbers attending are restricted and all must be competent sailors.

We encourage all Cadets to participate in the Club Races and there are 4 Cadet Series. These series have been generously sponsored by Watson Associates who have provided many prizes.

We have a Cadet Fun Week during the Summer half-term break – this involves afternoon sailing throughout the week, some fun races, and a BBQ. Bexhill is Volvo Championship Club. We finish the season with non-sailing social events such as Bowling, Swimming and a meal out.

Although Thursday Cadets cannot take all the credit, it should be mentioned that Bexhill now ranks as the 4th UK club out of 96 Clubs that competed the the April 2005 Topper Inland Championships in Grafam with Peter Harrison ranked in the top 10 UK Topper sailors. Peter has recently started sailing a Laser and achieved a personal best of 2nd place competing against a fleet of 100 boats, including Olympic sailors in Plymouth in a Laser Radial. Freddy Connor and Ben Slater are also in the Topper SE Zone Squads, and just in case you were thinking Bexhill Cadets was only for the Boys, Becky and Lucy Barrie competed in the Topper Inlands and Topper Worlds at Carnac last Summer.