Coaching flexibility offers family life balance
Win-win combination for career and home front
Photo credit - Paul Wyeth
When Amy Seabright concluded a decade of campaigning with the British Sailing Team, a step into coaching enabled her to continue in the sport while starting a family.
Within six weeks of her first child being born in July 2022, Amy (now Ellis) had been asked to help out with some 420 class youth squad coaching. With no other ‘plan B’ for a post-sailing career, it provided an unforeseen but welcome opportunity.
Now a mum-of-two following the arrival of her second child in June 2024, Amy is the lead coach for the British Sailing Team’s 470 Transition Squad, supporting sailors coming into the Olympic class who want to develop their skills to perform internationally.
For Olympic class sailing coaches, the perceived lifestyle of being on the training and racing circuit has a glamourous appeal from the outside looking in. But it isn’t always considered a family-friendly choice for those with partners and children at home.
Amy, however, is optimistic that coaching offers the flexibility to create a calendar, and even daily schedules, which fit into the jigsaw of juggling a young family with work.
Thanks to her own mum helping out along with her partner, it’s a work life balance that is so far proving to be a positive combination for both Amy and the sailors who are benefiting from the expertise she offers after years of world class campaigning.
“I like the freedom of coaching,” says Amy. “You need a good support network and it will evolve as the children start school, and I’m sure there’ll be times when it tests me a bit and the people around me, but hopefully it will still be doable. It’s about finding your levels for what you can and can’t do.”
Sailing pathway
Growing up in Essex with the Royal Corinthian YC at Burnham on Crouch as her home club, Amy helmed in the doublehanded junior Cadet class until the age of 15, with an aptitude for winning ways leading to podium results nationally and internationally.
Subsequently moving into the 420 youth class, Amy took a national title and a European medal, before continuing into the 470 Olympic class while studying sport science at Chichester University.
Photo credit - Paul Wyeth
Amy was a training partner leading up to the Rio and Tokyo Olympic Games for double gold medallist Hannah Mills, while her own British Sailing Team successes included a bronze medal with James Taylor at the first ever mixed 470 World Championships ahead of Paris 2024.
She says her decision to retire from the British Sailing Team in 2022 was partly influenced by the Covid pandemic: “It changed my perspective a bit. With more time at home, you see the other side of life. What we do is really cool but actually there’s a world outside of what we do. I was chasing a medal and although it was a short cycle after the delayed Tokyo games and a bit tempting, I didn’t actually have the motivation to do that anymore. Other things in my life ended up taking a higher priority and I realised that I enjoyed what I did but didn’t need to go to the Olympics.”
Amy says she applied for a few jobs and did some reception work at a local leisure centre: “Then I decided to just take a year out with the baby and sort my life out. But I fell into coaching and realised I needed to have something else as well, that I wasn’t just a mum.
“It’s only when you step away from campaigning, that you realise everyday jobs don’t have that drive and goal focus. I think that’s a bit of a struggle to live without if I’m honest. So having the coaching and creating a purpose really helped me with that transition out of the British Sailing Team, and because I know it so well, it comes naturally rather than stepping into a completely different role.”
During her own sailing campaign, Amy was inspired along the way by Olympic silver medallist-turned coach Joe Glanfield, who is a dad-of-five. His calm professionalism while working alongside family life is a quality that Amy hopes to take through to her own coaching.
“When you are campaigning, quite a lot of it is about who you’re surrounded by when it comes to success and whether you enjoy it,” explains Amy. “Joe always has a logical outward perspective and treats everyone with equal respect and importance - and even more so now I really respect the fact he does all that with a family at home.”
Rewarding goals
When it was all change for the British Sailing Team after the Tokyo games, this too was a factor in Amy’s decision to move on. Her buzz now comes from coaching those who are equally driven to achieve Olympic dreams in the same way that she herself used to be.
As Amy explains: “It’s a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. When you’re sailing, you’re living your own experience - you’ve only got your results, your disappointments, your elation. When you’re coaching you’ve got all three simultaneously because in a squad you want them all to do well but that never happens. The rewards are seeing people getting better and achieving their goals, whether that’s a process - like trying to get their footwork right in the boat - or an actual outcome.”
Photo credit - Lloyd Images
David Mellor, RYA Coaching Development Manager, hopes that role models like Amy will encourage more female sailors to consider coaching as a career option.
He says: “Amy has transitioned from campaigning to coaching while at the same time having a young family. It shows that coaching is gradually changing so it is possible to do both. It doesn’t have to be endless days on the road or lots of weekends. It is possible to create different portfolios of work to suit individual circumstances, which provides exciting opportunities and will hopefully enable us to attract a wider range of people and skills into coaching.”
Find out more at RYA Coaching Development or visit RYA Race Coaching to explore qualifications and the latest bookable courses.
Photo credit - Paul Wyeth