Newport District Scouts Water Activities Team

About Us

Most of our instructors have come from within scouting. Some had previous experience of sailing and powerboating and this has been useful in guiding the team and setting our goals, but some had no previous experience and trained up with us.

We now have 3 RYA Senior Dinghy Instructors, 3 RYA Powerboats instructors and one RYA Dinghy Instructor on the team as well as a bunch of RYA qualified sailors and safety boat crew.

 

We work closely with Llandegfedd Sailing Club and Welsh Water and offer our members RYA Powerboat Level 2 and Safety Boat courses

Our History

2021 – a shortened season due to Covid but great to get back on the water. We still managed to take 150 scouts out on the water with 15 reaching stage 2 and 9 reaching stage 3. We also gave Emily a repaint - hopefully that’ll keep the mussels off. 

 

2020 – Covid-19 – no sailing.

In 2019 we added a fleet of second-hand Toppers, 6 blue and 4 red, all with their own characters. This transformed our youth training and increased our capacity. Over 100 cubs and 200 scouts from 20 groups came sailing with us. Our Stage 3 sailors took part in our first competitive regatta at Llandegfedd Sailing Club. Thanks LLSC for inviting us.

 

In 2018 we purchased our own Drascombe Luggers, Shadow and Emily, and set about renovating them. Both went on to have a busy season taking 140 cubs and scouts out. Another 80 joined us for dinghy sailing and 20 completed RYA youth certificates.

 

In 2017 we welcomed 300 cubs and scouts on luggers and dinghies.

 

In 2016  170 Cubs, Scouts and Explorers came sailing with us.

 

In April 2015 Llandegfedd Reservoir reopened with a new Visitor Centre and Watersports Centre. In June we launched Moby, our new safety boat, and 6th Newport Scouts were the first to book a Lugger session with us as an activity on their summer camp. In August we launched our new RS Fevas and ran our first dinghy sailing sessions for Scouts and Explorers. By October we saw our 100th scout on the water, 70 on Fevas and 30 on Luggers.

 

In 2014 we set up Newport District SWAT which is a Scout Active Support Unit. We sailed a bit at Llangorse Lake and visited Avon Scouts for further sail training and 1st Watchet Sea Scouts for some coastal powerboat training. A couple of us who had previous powerboat experience returned to Watchet for RYA Safety Boat training.

In 2022 we had our busiest season yet with over 300 scouts on Luggers and 130 on dinghies. Some of our dinghy sailors reached Stage 4 with spinnakers and one joined the sailing club and made it into the Welsh Topper squad. We also welcomed our Xenon to our training fleet, kindly donated by a sailing club member.

In 2023 200 scouts joined us over 15 Luggers evenings and 130 more on dinghy sessions and courses. We ran youth Stages 1 thru 4 with intros to racing and spinnakers and during August we ran a series of fun youth sessions, culminating in our regatta where we were joined by some sailing club youth and our chefs cooked up some great burgers in the drizzle. 

2024 saw the arrival of Roger, our new RIB, and for the first time we took our scouts on coastal voyages with the Scouts Discovery Sailing Project - a brilliant experience. We also took over 150 scouts sailing on luggers along with 45 accompanying leaders and 140 on dinghies. It was a busy year.

In 2025 we welcomed over 160 scouts and 48 leaders on our Luggers and took 50 scouts sailing on our dinghies including fun days and stage 1 and 2 courses.  We made good use of Cliff, our new Topaz, kindly donated by a sailing club member. We also ran our annual PB2 course with the sailing club and it's good to see some of our older scouts now getting qualified and helping out on sessions.

 

In 2013 we borrowed two Drascombe Luggers, Sally-Jean and Isolde, and began training our leaders  at Llandegfedd Reservoir.