Levington's pioneering sailing school marks 50 years

The third generation director of a family-owned sailing school says the key to its success is it has "fundamentally stayed the same".

Amelia Fairburn runs the East Anglian Sea School, at Levington, Suffolk, set up by her grandfather 50 years ago.

It helped pioneer the Royal Yachting Association's Yachtmaster certificate.

Ms Fairburn, 27, said there were days "when you do pinch yourself, out on the river, on a lovely evening - there is nowhere else I'd rather be".

Joint director Edd Harvey-Bates, 32, said: "We both still enjoy getting out in the water and it's nice to see new people coming and progressing up the courses and getting a boat of their own."

When her grandfather Bill Smith began teaching people shore-based navigation in 1969, there were no Royal Yachting Association (RYA) sail-training schemes.

In 1973, he set up what was then called the East Anglian School of Sailing with his wife Pat, the same year the RYA Yachtmaster certificate of competence was introduced.

This offers a mix of classroom and water-based training and is followed by an exam to show whether the sailor is a competent skipper.

GPS navigation is now widely used in yachts, but Ms Smith said: "Even now, we always teach with paper charts, in case anything goes wrong with the technology."

The school initially operated out of Bradwell Creek, Essex, before moving to Levington, near Ipswich, and Mr Smith's son Peter and his wife Alison joined the team.

As well as sailing courses, it offers motor yacht and powerboat training, teaching about 2,000 people a year.

It now employs six full-time members of staff and between 35 to 40 seasonal staff to do the dinghy and yacht training.

Ms Fairburn spent her summer holidays teaching dinghy sailing and admitted: "Once I left school, tried a few things, but within six months I was back in the family business.

"It's not your normal nine to five, every day is a different day and you never know what's coming next."

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