Kids from ages 8 to 17 learn to sail with Premier Sailing School at Two Rivers Yacht Club in Governors Land. Using Optimists (small kid-size prams) and 420’s (college racing sailboats), kids learn over a five-day course to build up their skills and work their way up through five levels. This year the school is also offering safe power boating courses for adults and for children over 12. The course covers all the state-required learning. Half of the course takes place out on the water, driving boats and learning lots of boat handling skills. On completion of the course students get their U.S. Power boating Safe Powerboat Handling certificate and also their Lifetime Virginia Boaters Education cards.

Call Premier Sailing at 804-438-9300 for more information or visit www.premiersailing.com

Young Sailors Courses

Young people and children take naturally to sailing. We are specialists in teaching children to sail. Our sailing program for children was developed , by us, from the Royal Yachting Association Young Sailors Program which breaks down the learning process into many stages so that each child can learn at his or her own pace. Courses run Monday to Friday, 9.30 to 3.30.

Stage 1 (Introduction)
Stage 2 (Basic)
Stage 3 (Intermediate)
Stage 4 (Advanced)
Stage 5 ( Pre – Instructor)
Race Training Course

We have been using this program for years and have successfully taught hundreds of young people from age 6 upwards (age 8 at Williamsburg location) to sail with confidence and have fun! We use Optimists, Sunfish, Lasers , and believe in having each child sailing their own boat from the first day.

 You should be Sailing !

By the end of the week, they will have enough confidence and enough skill to make a boat go anywhere they want. We take great care to treat each child as an individual and never to frighten them by asking them to do something before they are ready.

Children can move up through the stages of the program from one year to the next, and for the more advanced young sailors we run Race Training and Team Racing courses.

Children love to sail! 

We organize lots of different sailing activities for children including 5 day sailing camps, race training camps, and afternoon sailing birthday parties.

Children can take shorter courses of 2,3 or 4 days if lack of time is an issue, and costs can be calculated per day.

* A full day for children is 9:30 – 3:30 with a lunch break

We have been running the sailing program at Two Rivers Yacht Club in Governors Land in Williamsburg since 2001.  This program is made open to the public in an ongoing effort by Two Rivers Yacht Club to introduce sailing to more and more young people.

The fleet here is comprised of Optimists (the international children’s boat, suitable for kids from age 8 to age 12) , 420’s (two man performance dinghy with spinnaker, suitable for teenagers) , Sunfish (suitable for teenagers) . We sail from the beach here – the river is very shallow which makes it very easy to launch and to return to the beach.

 Dates for the 2013 Sailing Program 

June  17-21

June 24-28

July 8-12

July 15-19

July 22-26

Plus Safe Powerboating two day courses on:

July 29/30

July 31/Aug 1

The Yacht Club makes a number of awards to young sailors each summer – weekly awards based on performance or character and at the end of the season two special awards which are :

The Captain William B. Kirkland Perpetual Award for best overall sailor:- Contenders this year were Matthew Allison, Caden Ellis, Cole Frankenhoff, Courtney Schreiber, Brett Schreiber,

2012 Winner:   Brett Schreiber

The David J. Kirkland Seamanship Trophy for best Optimist sailor:-  Contnders this year were Parker Driscoll, Cole Frankenhoff and Russell Lee

2012 winner –  Russell Lee

2013 Prices   – Don’t forget to take  Early Bird discount if you pay in full before 17th March!

One Week                                                        $395   with early bird  $355

Two or more children from same household              $350   with early bird  $315

Additional Weeks                                              $299  early bird  not applicable

More info here

About us and our instructors.

Premier Sailing was founded by Irish sailors Phil and Arabella Denvir.

Both are steeped in sailing tradition, starting from the long tradition of sailing in Ireland. Both are keen racers, having raced small boats and big. They are classic wooden boat enthusiasts, having owned and restored boats like the famous Merle of Malham, and the 1900 classic cutter “Rowena, which they have cruised in Ireland and in the southwest of England. Arabella races on the women’s match racing circuit and is currently ranked in the ISAF World ranking list.

The Denvirs moved to Malta in 1993 and founded Malta Sailing School, which ran the Royal Yachting Association Certification program for adults and for children. They are also well known for having founded the Malta Young Sailors Club, which is a thriving Optimist and Laser racing club for young sailors.

In 1998 they moved to the USA to establish Premier Sailing at The Tides Inn in Irvington.

With great regret we have to say that Philip Denvir passed away in July 2011.  He is deeply missed by all of us, instructors, staff and customers alike.

The school continues  in the same tradition which is to give high quality personalized instruction in a safe, friendly, and fun environment, and to encourage our students to pursue excellence.