From Derbyshire to Dorset – Lis Gordon’s Rockley Journey

If you had told a young girl growing up in landlocked Derbyshire, the county which famously claims to be the furthest from the sea in all of Britain, that she’d one day be co-owner of one of the UK’s leading watersports and outdoor activity providers, she might have laughed.

For Lis Gordon, a summer holiday, a borrowed dinghy, and an unshakable desire to learn to sail set in motion a journey that would eventually lead her to the helm of Rockley Watersports.

Lis’s passion for sailing began early, fuelled by a hunger for adventure and the thrill of helming her own boat. “I grew up in Derbyshire,” she recalls, “but somehow developed a passion for sailing and took every opportunity I could to get on the water.”

That opportunity first came in the form of a YHA Adventure Holiday in North Wales. The weather was textbook British summer; grey, drizzly, and uninviting, but Lis was undeterred. Dressed in bright orange waterproofs, she took the helm of a Wayfarer dinghy for the first time. She was hooked.

That week also gave her a lifelong friend, Karen, a fellow 12-year-old as obsessed with sailing as she was. The following summer, they returned together, cementing a bond built on a shared love of the wind and water. The pair remain in touch to this day.

Back home, opportunities to sail were scarce. Lis’s school wasn’t particularly sporty, but her physics teacher occasionally took small groups to a nearby reservoir where the council kept a fleet of Wayfarers for schools to use. With no sailing kit; no waterproofs, wetsuit, buoyancy aid, or boots, Lis dreamed of owning her own Laser dinghy, the kind she admired in the boat park.

Her enthusiasm, however, carried her far enough to be selected to represent Derbyshire at the National Schools Sailing Association regatta. “I needed a crew,” she remembers, “so my poor younger sister was roped in. She had never sailed before, and I’d never raced, let alone in a Firefly. We didn’t do well. We capsized, there was shouting, and very probably tears.”

Karen, meanwhile, had joined a sailing club, had her own Topper, and was racing regularly. A year or two later, she invited Lis to crew at the 420 Nationals. “That felt different,” Lis says. “I understood more about what was going on, and I’m pretty sure we stayed upright the whole time.”

After A Levels, Lis chose Sussex University partly for its proximity to the sea. The first club she joined was the sailing club, and one of her first purchases with her student grant was a wetsuit. “At last, I felt like a proper dinghy sailor with the right kit.”

Her experience, while still modest, was enough to land her a summer job after her first year at a sailing school she had never heard of, in a town she had never visited: Poole. The job came with accommodation, a free RYA instructor’s course at the end of the summer, and the promise of time on the water. “I also had an offer from Marks & Spencer to go back home,” Lis says. “But Poole sounded much more exotic at the time.”

That summer of 1985 became a turning point. She made friends, Ann, Phil, and Jacqui, who are still in her life today. And she met Peter Gordon, her now husband, “the rest, as they say, is history.”

From those early days, Lis has watched Rockley grow from a modest family-run sailing school into a nationally recognised leader in outdoor education and adventure.

“When Rockley started in 1976, it was one of many sailing schools along the south coast,” Lis explains. “Now, we’re one of the few still standing.” While others, Emsworth, Bosham, Hamble, Island Cruising Club, have since disappeared, Rockley has survived and thrived by constantly adapting.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Rockley was among the first to teach young children in single-handed dinghies like the Optimist and Topper, and to introduce teenagers to the Laser. “Traditionally, schools used Wayfarers, which I learned in,” Lis says. “But giving kids the freedom of their own boat gave them huge confidence and a real sense of achievement. I would have loved that when I was starting out.”

By the late 1980s, Rockley saw the decline of the traditional sailing holiday market and pivoted to school residential trips. In 1988, Sail France was launched, taking Rockley’s watersports expertise to the Landes region of southwest France. The first trips were at La Reserve on Lac Biscarrosse, expanding over the years to La Rive, Mayotte, Mimizan, Soustons, and even a mountain centre at Aravis in the French Alps.

Over 37 years, more than 100,000 children and adults experienced watersports through Sail France and Rockley Adventure, and thousands of young people got their first jobs there. The double blow of Brexit and COVID brought that era to a close in 2023, but the spirit of adventure remains.

Today, Rockley continues to operate at its original Rockley Point base and at Buddens Activity Centre near Wareham, which opened in 2021. “At its heart, Rockley was founded by sailors for sailors,” Lis says. “Teaching future generations is central to what we do. There are instructors all over the world who trained at Rockley, and that’s something we’re immensely proud of.”

After nearly four decades in the industry, Lis has plenty of stories. There were the epic London Boat Shows at Earls Court “A small-town girl from Derbyshire experiencing the bright lights of the big smoke!” and the time fellow instructor Jacqui left her stranded on a channel marker in the middle of Poole Harbour. “Don’t ask!”

But beyond the funny anecdotes, it’s the quieter moments that stand out. Watching a nervous young sailor gain confidence over a week-long course. Seeing former Rockley instructors go on to work all over the world. Running into someone who still remembers their school trip decades later.

As Rockley celebrates its 50th anniversary, Lis is as passionate as ever about its mission. The landscape of outdoor education is changing, schools face budget pressures, and young people’s time is pulled in more directions than ever, but the value of what Rockley offers has never been greater.

“Outdoor adventure builds confidence, resilience, and teamwork,” she says. “For many children, especially those who’ve never been away from home, it can be life-changing. I’d like to see Rockley continue to innovate, to keep making watersports accessible, and to inspire the next generation of sailors, instructors, and adventurers.”

If the first 50 years are anything to go by, Rockley’s next half-century will be full of new challenges, new adventures, and, undoubtedly, more stories worth telling.