lewes yacht club delaware

Sailing School

Click here for 2024 sailing school registration..

Email   [email protected]  with questions and to be placed on the reminder list.  

Cape Critters Program The Cape Critters Program is designed for children ages 5-7 years old that have no sailing experience. It is a ½ day program that begins at 9 AM and concludes at 12 PM, Monday through Wednesday or Thursday and Friday. The core concepts are fundamentals of water safety, sailing our Hobie Waves, and an experience of the wonder of our diverse bayside environment. FUN and teamwork are emphasized while sailing as a group. An onboard instructor rotates the campers through a series of jobs including Lookout - Sail Trim - and Steering.

Weekday Sailing School

Students can attend a 3 hour morning or afternoon session, or they can attend a 7 hour all day clinic with a one hour break for lunch and pool time. We have 5 different skill levels, training to the 19 skills in US Sailing's Start Sailing Right. Students are placed in groups based on previous experience and instructor assessments. Depending on their skills students may sail in Hobie Waves - Flying Scots - Zests - Sunfish - Lasers, and other boats. As they progress they will learn skills like seamanship, water safety, proper sail trim and steering, rigging and de-rigging, launching and landing, and capsizing and recovery. Each daily session includes a brief pre and post sail chalk talk, with the majority of the time dedicated to being on the water.

Cape Critter Program (morning only, M-W or Th-F)  

        Ages 5-7  with NO SAILING EXPERIENCE.

•        Monday to Wednesday or Thursday and Friday

•        9 AM to 12 PM

•        Boats: Hobie Wave For more Critter information Click HERE

Register HERE

All Day Session                                     

        Ages 8-18 •        Weekday Sailing School** •        9 AM to 4 PM (12-1=lunch/swim break) •        Boats: Zest/Opti/Sunfish/Laser/420

Morning Session

       Ages 8-18 •        Weekday Sailing School** •        9 AM to 12 PM •        Boats: Zest/Hobie Wave/Opti/Sunfish/Laser/420 **Requires Froglet minimum skills for sailors under 10

Afternoon Session                                  

       Ages 8-18

•        Weekday Sailing School**

•        1 PM to 4 PM

•        Boats: Zest/Opti/Sunfish/Laser/420 **Requires Froglet minimum skills for sailors under 10

For more Weekday Sailing School Information Click HERE

To register click here, frequently asked questions.

Q: What should my sailor bring to summer sailing lessons?

A: Sunglasses, Hat, Water bottle, Swim outfit, Sunscreen, Towel, Lunch (for Full day), Life Jacket, Closed Toed shoes that can get wet. Click here for a detailed list.

Q: Does my sailor need a life vest?

A: YES! Sailors need to bring their own life jacket. Your PFD should be Coast Guard approved and the right size for your sailor. We have a bin of life jackets that students can borrow if they occasionally forget.

Q: Where can I drop off/pick up my sailor from LYC Sailing School?

Please drop your sailor off outside the Regatta Room Monday morning and register with the instructor at the table. They will direct you to the proper location. For the safety of your sailor, please check in and out. Drop off starts at 8:50 am. Please find the Sailing Director to approve contact information!  The AM and Cape Critters end at noon and Full and PM lessons end at 4pm. The kids will be waiting for you in the Regatta Room to pick them up. Please confirm pick-up with the Sailing Director or an Instructor so that we know your child has been picked up safely. All non-member AM/Cape critters need to be checked out before 12:15pm.

Q: Will there be a swim check?

A: Instructors give a swim check Monday morning to ensure comfort and safety in and around the water.

Q: What happens when the weather is too bad to sail?

A: Safety is our #1 priority. If the weather does not permit us to sail we will bring class inside to do sailing related activities and team building exercises until conditions improve.

Q: What if we have to cancel?

A: Students who cancel three weeks prior to the program start date receive a full refund. Within two weeks prior to the start date, the student receives a 50% refund. Inside of two weeks there will be no refund.

• Yacht Clubs

Lewes Yacht Club

lewesyc.com

2701 Cedar Street

Lewes , DE 19958

(302) 645-8596

The Lewes Yacht Club (LYC) was founded in 1932 to encourage water sports, boating, casual sailing, and promote racing competition. The Club is enriched by its history and traditions, yet has a casual and relaxed atmosphere. LYC is situated at the mouth of the Delaware Bay, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. The Club hosts Sunday races in everything from Sunfish and Mobjacks to Open Bics, Zumas and Optis for junior racers. They also co-host the Annual Cape-to-Cape Challenge Race, between LYC and the Corinthian Yacht Club of Cape May, NJ.

From the Commodore:

“We are extremely pleased to have been able to participate with and join the National Sailing Hall of Fame as a Founding Member. The members and friends of sailing at LYC rallied to raise the donations privately, but it was a Club-wide Campaign with Club-wide support! We feel that this effort in supporting the NSHOF has strengthened the Lewes Yacht Club and sailing in general. We look forward to a lasting relationship with the NHSOF to the benefit of all those with sailing in their blood!! We strongly encourage that all yacht clubs undertake a similar campaign— it was “win-win” for us.”

Bob Edelen, Commodore

Quick Links

Getting Here

The Sailing Museum & Hall of Fame

365 Thames Street

Newport, RI 02840

401.324.5761

[email protected]

Lewes Yacht Club

Location & Hours

Suggest an edit

2701 Cedar Ave

Lewes, DE 19958

Amenities and More

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Overall rating

Private club with dining, snack bar, pool and beach. For boaters. Great location. Lovely pool. Good view at outside bar. Few charged to use the pool. Betty is the best and serves everything with a smile. Shell even tell you her personal favorite places to eat.

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• Best of Delaware

P laying in the sun, sand and surf every day is Delawarean Clara Elliott’s idea of a perfect summer. Obviously, she’s not alone. Each year, thousands of people from all over the country flock to Delaware’s beaches.

Whether day tripping or staying the summer, many are looking for fun activities for their kids. Fear not: Delaware is ready. Sailing, surfing, swimming, skimboarding and even geocaching (GPS hide-and-seek, essentially) camps are part of Sussex County’s summer camp scene.

Elliott, 18, of Lewes, offers just one of several activities people can expect to find along our coast. A former world-ranked amateur skimboarder, she now teaches the sport she loves to others through Relyance Skim Camp just south of Dewey Beach.

Being a camper at Relyance as a kid is what motivated Elliott herself to compete on amateur and professional levels before becoming a counselor. 

Click here for more information about coastal camps.

“They’re really good at talking with kids,” she says of the camp’s founders, Dave and Tom Bracht, who are also internationally ranked professional skimboarders. The duo founded the camp to not only grow the predominantly West Coast sport (Laguna Beach, California, is home to one of the best breaks in the world and hosts the Skimboarding World Championship every summer) on the East Coast, but also to provide life lessons and be positive role models for their students. Their camps are family affairs. Staff and students skim, swim, play games on the beach and enjoy lunch, which the Brachts’ parents provide to the camp.

“I swear some of the kids don’t even like to skim [but] come for the food,” Dave says. People ask for their taco recipes, and they sell T-shirts highlighting “Stanburgers,” the name the campers gave the burgers Dave and Tom’s father grills up for them.

Monday through Thursday throughout the summer, Relyance offers full and half-day camps for beginners through advanced skimmers. Several of their graduates, like Elliott, have gone on to be nationally ranked in skim competitions. If a camper just has a good time, though, they are happy with that.

“Our whole goal is for kids to have the best week of their summer,” says Dave.

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Skimming waves isn’t the only way to stand on water this summer. Surfer Peter Zabowski of the Rehoboth Surf Boarding School caters to kids age 6 and older in the art of surfing and stand-up paddleboarding. He’s taught surfing in Puerto Rico and spends his winters traveling to the best surf spots around the globe. He believes Delaware is a great place to learn how to surf because the waves are big enough to ride, but not too big to be intimidating.

“You [only] need a knee-high wave to have fun,” he says.

Surfing depends on the tides, so when there are no swells, Zabowski and his team of instructors put their campers on paddleboards, have them doing yoga, riding bikes, hiking trails and even helping with beach cleanups. His camps max out at 15 campers per week, so sign up early at rbsurf.school to guarantee a spot.

For a more wind-powered experience on water, the Lewes Yacht Club offers weekly sailing lessons on the Delaware Bay throughout the summer for children ages 5 to 16. Camps start with mild exposure and the general concept of sailing, so children will learn the tiller from the topping lift before they venture far from the dock.

Starting off in sunfish sailboats with instructors on the first day, campers work toward the ability to solo sail and even race one another.

The curriculum also teaches basic seamanship, water safety, proper sail trim and steering, rigging and de-rigging, launching and landing, capsizing and recovery.  Each day includes a brief pre- and post-sail chalk talk, with the majority of the time spent on the water.

RELATED: Delaware Summer Camp Guide 2020

“We want to foster a love of sailing and water sports on the bay,” says Beth Copeland, a member of the sailing committee.

The camp’s hope is to create a lifelong passion for the sport. And it’s worked before. Yacht club campers have gone on to maritime schools and the United States Naval Academy.

With any time on or near the water, it’s smart to have some safety and survival skills. Area lifeguards are here to help with their junior lifeguard programs in Rehoboth and Dewey Beaches.

“It’s an awesome program,” says Kent Buckson, Rehoboth Beach patrol captain, of the part-time camp. Running before lifeguards hit their stations Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from mid-June to mid-August, the program is for families who want structured fun and learning but don’t want it to take up the whole day or week.

Lifeguards give juniors lessons about equipment, life-saving procedures such as how to properly move someone to a backboard, and communication, such as how to send a message with flags.

“Kids love the beach flags and jumping in the water,” Buckson says. “Each day has a theme—like Mental Monday, where students are taught how to avoid getting hurt in the ocean and on the beach.” Workout Wednesday has the kids taking part in conditioning exercises, while Fun Friday has campers play games like dodgeball and tag.

“I liked the variety,” says former junior guard Sidney Caldwell of Lewes. “Each day was different, and the games were fun. I liked learning about ocean safety and what it takes to be a lifeguard.”

Juniors are encouraged to try out for the real thing when they get older, Buckson says. Several of his veteran lifeguards got their start in the summer program.

The Coastal Fun Camp at the Sussex Family YMCA in Rehoboth offers different coastal adventures every week. Campers learn to love nature through hiking, exploring, swimming and going on field trips, and can sign up by the week or for the entire summer.

For those looking for a sleep-over experience, Camp Arrowhead offers cabins and activities for children in grades 2 to 11 on the shore of Rehoboth Bay near Lewes. The camp experience is designed to “enrich young people’s relationships with one another, nature and God,” its website says. “Campers are encouraged to embrace a sense of adventure and cultivate spiritual awareness as they take healthy risks, share responsibilities, and engage in outdoor life with one another.”

Here students take part in rafting, kayaking, sailing, banana-boating and swimming, as well as activities like dancing and arts and crafts. Challenge courses, complete with a climbing wall, high ropes and low ropes adventures, appeal to kids of all ages, while older campers can also take part in backcountry-like camping away from the main cabins.

“It’s a lot of fun,” says Lucas Stevenson, 14, of Lewes, who has spent several weeks at Camp Arrowhead.

Camps offer plenty of educational opportunities, too. Delaware State Parks hosts programs that teach everything from beach ecology to a day on the job of the lifesaving station crew. Day camps for ages 7 and older feature activities like squid dissection, kayaking eco tours through the salt marsh, geocaching using GPS to find hidden treasures, and hikes along the shore.

High school students with an interest in marine biology and oceanography can find a world of excitement at University of Delaware’s Summer TIDE program. The 13-day instructional camp focuses on the atmospheric, oceanic and biogeochemical processes at work in the Delaware Bay. Camp academic activities include classroom instruction, discussions, lectures and visits to modern oceanographic and atmospheric laboratories, as well as field excursions to the Bay for sampling and exploration.

The camp is administered by UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment’s campuses in Newark and Lewes, which facilitates interdisciplinary research, undergraduate and graduate education, and outreach in earth, ocean and environmental systems. The aim is to help students gain an understanding of concepts like sea breeze, tides, habitat loss, climate change and alternative energy. Campers spend time at both campuses.

So, stow those devices away. This summer, there is much fun to be had near and along Delaware’s coast.

Coastal Delaware Summer Camp Guid e

Camp Arrowhead Lewes • 945-0610 Activities: Christian education, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, banana-boating, low ropes course, high rope course, climbing wall, zip line, tie-dye, clay and tiles, disc golf, archery, swimming, dances, cooking out, camp craft, environmental education Ages: Grades 2–11 Duration: full-day, overnight week and two-week camps, June through August Price: $310–$1,145 Website: camparrowhead.net

Cape Henlopen State Park Lewes • 645-6852 Activities: animal-, history- and nature-themed camps Ages: 5–12 Duration: half-day and full-day only, three-day and weekly sessions Price: $75–$200 Website: destateparks.com

Dewey Beach Junior Lifeguard Dewey Beach • 227-6363 Activities: lifesaving history, lifeguard qualification/training, communication methods, health, fitness, safety, rescue equipment, public relations, drowning, preventive lifeguarding, water surveillance, aquatic search and rescue, records and reports Ages: 6–16 Duration: 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., Tuesday and Thursday, July through August Price: $20 Website: townofdeweybeach.com

Lewes Yacht Club Sailing Camp Lewes • 645-8596 Activities: sailing, sailing terminology, how to rig and derig the boat, steering, sail control Ages: 5–16 Duration: half day, full day Price: $170–$300 Website: lewesyachtclubsailing.com

Rehoboth Beach Patrol Junior Lifeguard Rehoboth Beach • 227-6181 Activities: aerobic and anaerobic exercise, lifeguarding skills, health and fitness, cognitive activities, first aid, communication methods, water surveillance Ages: 5–16 Duration: 8 to 9 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, June through August Price : $95 Website: rehobothbeachpatrol.com

Rehoboth Surf Boarding School Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach • 745-5804 Activities: surfing, SUP, trips to Assateague National Park and Delaware state parks, local history, team building, water safety, yoga, beach cleanup. Ages: 10–15 Duration : full day, June through July Price: three-day, $395; five-day, $495 Website: rbsurf.school

RELYance Skim Camp Tower Road State Park • 717-343-3588 Activities: skimboarding, beach games Ages: 5 and up Duration: full-day and mini-camp, June through August Price: $300 Website: relyanceskimcampde.com

TIDE Camp Lewes/Newark Activities : scientific and academic activities, picnics, movies, quiz night, beach visits and volleyball Ages : Grades 10–12 (prior to graduation) Duration: 13 days, July Price: $2,000 Website: udel.edu

YMCA Summer Camps Rehoboth Beach, Sussex Family YMCA • 296-9622 Activities: swimming, environmental education, STEM projects, beach trips Ages: 5–14 Duration: full day, June through August Price: $150 members, $200 community member Website: ymcade.org

Published as “Sun, Sand & Surf” in the March 2020 Issue of Delaware Today magazine.

Your guide to the people, places and activities of Delaware from its beaches and coastal towns to its bustling cities and historic sites.

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• Notice at Collection

Young sailors shine on Delaware Bay

Sailors ages 8 to 19 from the East Coast competed in the July 17-18 USA Junior Olympic Sailing Festival hosted by Lewes Yacht Club.

Racing in seven events over two days, 120 sailors competed in three fleets – Club 420 with a crew of two, Laser Radial and Optimist, split into four divisions – green, red, white, blue – based on age and experience. Young sailors compete in a series of Junior Olympic festivals in locations all over the country.

Top finishers include: Club 420: 1. Matt Budington/Linnea Forsberg, Annapolis Yacht Club; 2. Beckett Kumler/Orion Adelman, Annapolis; 3. Skylor Sweet/Isabella Webb, North East River Yacht Club. Lewes Yacht Club: 25. Aiden Bowman/Nick Holman; 34. Mina Swier/Anne Dolan; 36. Rachel Delie/Sarah Krajewski.

Laser Radial: 1. Magnus Weissenberger, Gibson Island Sailing Squadron; 2. Phillip Ralph, Tred Avon Yacht Club; 3. Jack O'Donnell, Tred Avon. Lewes Yacht Club: 12. Ivan Yelk; 15. Ryan Evans.

Optimist Red (top 3): 1. Kyle Reinecke, Annapolis; 2. Rebecca Schill, Fisher Bay; 3. Ava Arepally, Tred Avon. Lewes Yacht Club: Bailey Fletcher, 16th in red fleet, 26th overall.

Optimist Blue (top 3): 1. Bo Angus, Fisher Bay; 2. Luca DeSimone, Tred Avon; 3. Christopher Draper, Annapolis.

Optimist White (top 3): 1. Cal King, Fisher Bay; 2. Spencer Bunting, Baltimore County; 3. Eli Waltz, Severn Sailing Association.

Optimist Green: 1. Maddie Deane, Baltimore County Sailing Center; 2. Samuel de los Reyes, Annapolis; 3. Lizzy Scales, Severn Sailing Association. Lewes Yacht Club: 8. William Burke; 19. Benjamin O'Nell; 23. Riley Stazzone; 25. Blake Fitzgerald; 27. Will DiPaolo; 28. Oliver Swier; 29. Thomas Bain.

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