Southampton Water Activity Centre - Chieftain Training

14/09/2026

⚓ Two new training mooring buoys for SWAC

Today Chieftain Training laid two new dedicated training mooring buoys off the Southampton Water Activity Centre (SWAC).

The new moorings will be used across the centre's powerboat, dinghy and paddlesports courses, but they will be particularly valuable for Powerboat Level 2 and PWC students learning how to approach, pick up and leave a mooring safely.

Principal Doug Innes commented:

“SWAC is a great place for all of our boat-handling courses. We have our own slipways, walk-ashore pontoons, midstream pontoon and pile moorings, which means we can teach a huge amount of practical boat handling without having to go anywhere. or rely on a third party or marina. These two new training moorings complete the set for us.”

The positions of the new moorings were agreed with the Harbour Master, ABP Southampton.

Chieftain Training deliberately installed two different styles of mooring. One has a steel ring for securing directly to the buoy, while the other has a pickup buoy and strop. This allows students to practise with, and understand, different types of mooring systems they are likely to encounter elsewhere.

Combined with SWAC's existing facilities, the new training buoys give students an even wider range of real-world boat-handling scenarios right outside the centre. The training mooring bouys are also available for Southampton Lifeboat's in house crew training.

11/09/2026

New covers this week from Phil at Rain&Sun, for our 3Ks and our Vagos.- Looking very smart.

10/09/2026

🚨 Our two brand-new Yamaha VX Waverunners arrived at SWAC today. 🚨

These machines will help us train the next generation of safe, confident and responsible PWC riders.

Our RYA Personal Watercraft Proficiency Course is a practical one-day course for both new and existing riders, covering:
🌊 PWC handling and manoeuvring
🚤 Launching and recovery
⚓ Rules of the road
⚠️ Safe speed
📍 Local bylaws and operating restrictions
🛟 Man Overboard recovery
🔄 Capsize and righting drills
🧭 Passage planning and safe riding techniques
…and plenty more.

For experienced riders looking to take things further, SWAC also runs the 3-day RYA PWC Instructor Course, qualifying successful candidates to teach the RYA PWC Proficiency Cours.

With brand-new Yamaha Waverunners, large private slipways, changing facilities and immediate access to low-speed, planing-speed and passage-making areas, SWAC is an ideal place to learn — or to become an instructor.

08/09/2026

Great review from the weekend's RYA Powerboat Level 2, taught by Alp

06/09/2026

⛵ SWAC Sailability is going year-round! ♿🌊

Following the success of our 2026 evening Sailability sessions this summer, we’re really pleased to announce the next stage of the programme.

Rather than stopping when the evenings draw in, SWAC Sailability will continue throughout the year, with a new regular year round daytime session.

During the winter months we’ll make greater use of our keelboats, giving sailors the opportunity to keep getting afloat even when dinghy sailing isn’t practical.

From spring through to autumn, sessions will include a mixture of dinghy sailing and keelboating, depending on conditions, ability and individual preference.

Of course, there will occasionally be winter days when the weather means we have to postpone, but there are also plenty of calm, bright winter days when sailing is perfectly achievable — and we want to make those opportunities available.

Our aim is simple: to make sailing more accessible, more often, to more people.

The programme is open to people with disabilities and additional needs, whether you are completely new to sailing or already have some experience.

📍 Southampton Water Activity Centre (SWAC)
⛵ Dinghies and keelboats
📅 Weekly, year-round sessions
👥 Supported by our experienced SWAC team and volunteers

So from 23 September we will be running a new year-round Wednesday morning programme with a break during each school holiday.

This year's evening program will soon move to Thursdays and will continue to operate late April to early October each year.

To summarise, going forward there will now be 2 sessions a week, Wednesday mornings year round and Thursday evenings April to October.

If you know someone who might enjoy getting out on the water with us, please share this post with them. If you would like to volunteer please get in touch.

For more info, dates and booking, please visit https://chieftain.training/swac-sailability-club/

SWAC Sailability Club (Southampton). An inclusive, year round friendly sailing programme designed to enable disabled people to enjoy being on the water

04/09/2026

Great to have Toqeer Kataria - Councillor, pop in last week to see how our summer holiday programme was going.

30/08/2026

Dan joined us last week for Pre exam preperation and passed his Advanced Powerboat Certificate of Competence with flying colours. What a credit to Ryde Inshore Rescue and Cowes Harbour Commission

Well done to Dan who has officially qualified as a Coxswain on RR2 at Ryde Inshore Rescue! We are all incredibly proud of you 👏🏼

28/08/2026

Yesterday's Powerboat Refresher on board Apache, taught by Peter.

28/08/2026

This weeks 4 Cs- The Chieftain Cat Conversion Course.

Our cat Conversion Course at SWAC allows existing dinghy sailors to adapt their skills to these wider and faster machines

The sailors has a great time in the winds today.