"Sailing's played a huge part in my life"

In a prize-winning autobiographical tale printed in RYA magazine, Llangorse member - now Training Principal, David White, writes about how sailing and power-boating has shaped his life – and helped him through life’s challenges

I first really started sailing around 45 years ago, at Welton Waters SC near Hull. I also joined the RYA for the first time. I raced Lasers and Fireballs and thoroughly enjoyed being a member and part of a friendly and sociable club.

Five years later I moved to Cheshire, and not wanting to search for crews (the local club didn’t do Lasers), I took to windsurfing, which I was not particularly good at!

Later, I thought I would like to try bigger boats and completed the Competent Crew qualification at Plas Menai, followed by Day Skipper Theory at a local school. I then followed on with Rainbow Sailing School in Swansea, completing my Day Skipper and then moving on to Yachtmaster Theory and eventually the practical qualification.

I decided that I wanted my own boat for me and the family to sail on. The RYA system gives an excellent all round knowledge-base of all aspects of sailing and power boating, but I hadn’t experienced tackling things going seriously wrong. I wanted to know how to deal with major problems first-hand, so that if they happened with family on board, I would know what is going on and how to deal with it.

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I saw an advertisement from a sailing school to do 2 years of off-shore racing, culminating with the Fastnet race in 2001. When racing things can go wrong as you push to limits and past them. It worked, and my confidence grew.

I bought a Bavaria 41 in 2003, and combining my RYA navigational skills sailed thousands of miles from Swansea to France, the Channel Isles, Portugal, Spain and the Canaries. I also enjoyed the friendships of people in my own berth in Swansea Marina.

My wife, daughter and myself, would often go down to the boat for a quiet Friday night but ending up joining tables for 20 at a local restaurant.

Of course, after years of sailing there are many tales to tell, but where my RYA training and racing experience came together, was off the Portuguese coast. Here a variable force 2 to 3 was the forecast. I had done my full passage-plan and also kept a paper chart up to date as well as using GPS. Despite the forecast, we were hit with 50 knots across the deck, so we did what was required with sail and engine, and I had to remain calm. I had encountered this before while racing. I went below and studied the Alamanac, as the nearest apparent bolt-holes were not considered to be ports of refuge, I found an inlet with two marinas, one to the north and one to the south. The north was the one we needed to head to in the dark, wind and driving rain. A relieved, if somewhat soggy crew went to the yacht club where the members plied us with hot soup. Despite the language issue, this was the sailing community doing what it does for fellow sailors.

After some years times changed, people gave up boats, got divorced, moved away and for our own part we had some family health and financial issues, and we sold our boat. I still miss her.

I still did some boat dabbling and had involvement in a sailing school where I became a commercial skipper for power and sail, a Yachtmaster Instructor and Advanced Powerboat Instructor. Unfortunately wheels of fate turned again and this ended.

Thanks to an advertisement by the RYA offering the opportunity for instructors to learn about sailing historic boats, I sailed on Jolie Brise on the Solent - absolutely amazing!

It turned out that Swansea Museum needed a temporary volunteer skipper on the Olga, a fully restored Bristol Pilot Cutter while an employee completed his exams. She too was a joy to sail on! Yet again this ended as the boat was leased out to an organisation on the South Coast.

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So I left sailing for a while, but kept my RYA membership. 

Then came Covid, and I also lost my four closest friends. During Covid I realised how important social activity is for mental health. After a long period on your own and you bump into someone to talk to, you find you forget words and lose track half-way through sentences. This is not necessarily a degenerative situation, merely lack of practice.

In conversation on the issue of loneliness with my wife, she pointed out that I only know sailing but couldn’t afford a cruiser, so she suggested joining a dinghy club. She advised that even if I can’t sail a dinghy, I can help-out by driving rescue boats or even doing some instruction.

I joined Llangorse SC near Brecon, bought the perfect boat for me which didn’t like the lake so changed to another, which I didn’t like - and then bought a 40 year old Flying Fifteen. At over a hundred times less than the cost of a small cruiser, it is a beautiful boat.

More importantly for me though, Llangorse has been the ultimate in welcoming a new member and everyone has been friendly and supportive. I feel again that I can be part of a community and get involved.

So, aged 71, here I am eagerly awaiting next season in 2026, but with plenty to get on with ready for it.

I would recommend to anyone who has been involved in sailing or boating in general, in any way but lost track of it, to contact local clubs for dinghies or cruisers where you can crew or simply help out. The gathering of like-minded people is a lift to your well-being and you can also give back to a leisure activity from which you have benefited over the years. The RYA can give advice on where to go.