RQYS MAINSHEET 2023

Academy insights

An Academy Instructor’s journey: Scotty Luxton’s reflections

“This year I made selection for the Queensland Academy of Sport as a ‘Pre-Emerging’ athlete, but I first learned to sail at age five in a Sabot with my older brother at Southport Yacht Club. I didn’t enjoy it back then (sailboats scared me) and I preferred the pure feeling of speed you get from accelerating in the coach boat and I stopped sailing when I was about seven. “Throughout school, I tried a lot of other sports – tennis, hockey, basketball – but nothing stuck. When I was 14 my parents signed me up for the RQYS windsurfing course around Easter.

“I enjoyed the challenge and the amazing community this sport seemed to have even more. Before long I was sailing faster than I ever had in a coach boat, and the beginning of a life-long obsession for speed, adrenaline and racing began. At the start of 2018 I joined the RQYS ‘Techno293 Windsurfing Youth Squad’ and started racing. “A few months later, most of us joined the Queensland Sailing Team youth program run by Australian Sailing. After completing the eastern Australia regatta circuit, finishing with the Youth Nationals in Tasmania in

January 2019, I jumped into the raceboard windsurfing class, competing in the 2020 Nationals, finishing 9th overall and winning the Youth Division. Along with the raceboard class I also started slalom racing, a much faster, less tactical, windsurfing racing style with pure downwind reaching – the fastest racing possible on a windsurfer. In 2020 I tried my hand at boats again, crewing for my younger brother in the 29er class. “Through 2020 a few friends gave me the opportunity to try the latest development in the windsurfing world: hydro-foiling.

”In 2021 RQYS and Windsurfing Queensland brought in the rental foiling gear to the windsurfing centre, and since then I’ve been racing in the new IQ-Foil Olympic Windsurfing class. In 2021 I started working at RQYS as a windsurfing instructor, and in 2022 as a dinghy instructor and as a Coach, coaching the RQYS Foiling Youth Squad until the end of the season. Through 2023 I’ve been working hard to build back up the Techno293 program, coaching the squad that started the journey for me – and all this with an eye on 2032 and the programs to get there!” n

COURSES KEY XMAS Hols 2022–23

Offered / attended

Cancelled / no attendance

Not offered / available

RQYS SAILING ACADEMY 2022–23

Term 1 2023

Term 2 2023

Term 3 2023

Term 4 2023

EASTER Hols

JUN/JUL Hols

SEP Hols

COURSE

CLASS / CATEGORY

Participants

195

Tackers 1–3 Sail and Play

Learn to Sail

60 72 27

Dinghy

Start Sailing 1 & 2

Start Crewing & Helming

Keelboat

6

Start Skippering Start Windsurfing Powerboat Handling Safety Boat Operator

Windsurfing

29 21

Powerboat Handling

9

Total all courses

165

17

68

13

51

33

53

19

419

Year 2 - Intro to Tackers Year 3 /4 - Tackers 1 & 2 Year 5 - Tackers 3 Year 6 - Start Sailing 1 Elite - Coaching

School Sailing (Gumdale)

728

School Sailing (others)

45

Total all schools

773

Total all Australian Sailing courses above

165

39

68 329

51 234

53 253

1,192

Opti (Green, Intermediate, Open)

Green Fleet - Quest Feva Lasers (4.7 & Radial) Flying 11 - Sailors 29er - Sailors Nacra - Sailors Youth Squad casuals

Youth Squad

425

Foil Squad (incl. casuals) Green Fleet - Windsurfing

Dinghy

a. Discover Sailing Experience

33

Keelboat Windsurfing

Level 2

b. Private Coaching

236

Head Coach Sessions (all)

c. Sail our Boats Total a–c above

413

649 TOTAL ALL PARTICPANTS / SESSIONS 2,299

Mainsheet 2023

46

Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron Yearbook