Recently, I have been meeting dinghy sailors who are re-learning to sail by the rigorous modern method nowadays taught to school children: beside them I am less than a beginner – I do not even know the names of their manoeuvres. These courses certainly produce skilful racing helmsmen, but I cannot be sure what sort of sailors, in the broader sense, emerge from them. Those trained at the centre run for Cheshire schoolchildren on the Menai Straits will be familiar with sea sailing in waters where tides are a study in themselves. They are taught to cope with these conditions, to understand the ways of the weather and to handle a boat with great speed and accuracy.

From what I hear, their training requires considerable endurance as well as skill. They will be equipped to deal swiftly with emergencies, and will think of cruising in a dinghy (I suspect) as a matter of being constantly under stress. I am told that capsizing is not regarded as a natural part of sailing - but they still do have to learn to capsize, and inevitably it must become a manoeuvre rather than an accident. They do learn to be independent in the not too easy waters in which they sail: how will they shape as dinghy cruisers if any of them turn to that rather than racing?

They will expect cruising in a dinghy to be a sport for the very fit and active, a test of skill and endurance. They will have learnt to reef - but will they be content with a comfortable safe sail in an area which I myself consider right for a dinghy alone at sea? Will they not regard a sail as not worth doing if one does not accomplish it at a respectable speed, and arrive efficiently at ones stated destination? They can probably make a boat do what they want it to do very successfully. Are they really safer than, or as safe as, we potterers who have never wanted sailing to be a marathon, but just a comfortable meander from place to place? Probably they are safer as well as better sailors than we are: at any rate it would do no harm for those of us who have kept carefully out of dangerous situations for years and who have never tried to compete in speed or skill, to add a little of their efficiency to our caution. Joan Abrams