Meet the Team
Who's who at RYA Cymru Wales.
James Stuart
James joined RYACW from RYA Scotland where he stepped in as CRO through a transition in their leadership. His first career was in the Military as an Infantry Officer, followed by roles leading Scottish Equestrian Association, RYA Scotland, Entrepreneurial Scotland and a life sciences company. More recently he ran a consultancy and currently also works for RYA as the Director of Legal, Governance and Integrity. He learned to sail in Berlin at 11 and has been involved in racing, instructing and club volunteering ever since. He currently sails a dart 18.
Sarah McGovern
Sarah grew up sailing on the Menai Straits and is a member of Port Dinorwic Sailing Club. She is a past member of the Optimist and ILCA Welsh Squads and the GBR Youth and British Sailing Team ILCA Squads. Sarah stayed in the sport post racing and has over 15years of coaching experience from grass roots level all the way through to Head Coach for the GBR Optimist Programme and supporting females in Sailing. Sarah has been the Performance Manager since 2020 and get’s a huge reward seeing young Welsh sailors developing a love for the sport as she did.
Hester Walker
Being raised by a single dad and him being a Chandler, Hester has always been in and around water. She started her profession by chance with a county council sport development initiative to develop instructors, this led to many years of freelance outdoor education work across the country including the Princes Trust before progressing on to work for RYA Cymru Wales in 2013. Hester has a passion of working within the community and supporting sailor development through her role as Club Development Officer.
Hatty Morsley
Hatty will be helping run our major events and also our club workshops. She will also be helping support the Pathway Clubs and wide Pathway activity.
Paula Irish
Paula has had two sailors coming through the club and RYA programmes and is an avid writer and public relations and communications specialist. All of our amazing news articles are written by Paula and much of our social media posts.