Portland, Dorset

Two logs.
One hand on
the tiller.

Full-time RYA Senior Instructor with a multihull endorsement. Ten years in tech before that. Same discipline, different medium: read conditions, commit to a heading, adjust fast.

01 / Who's Aboard

Me

I'm Blade Harvell, working out of Portland, Dorset. I'm a full-time sailing instructor now, twelve years on the water, after ten years in tech.

I hold my RYA Senior Instructor (SI) rating with a Multihull endorsement, and teach at Advanced Instructor level, training students, and training the instructors who train them. Over 5,000 students have come through that in one form or another.

On the tech side, I hold a BSc in Software Engineering from Bournemouth University (2025) and a Digital Forensics certificate from the Open University. A few languages come with the territory too, picked up on passage and on land.

Home PortPortland, Dorset
RoleSailing Instructor, Full-Time
RatingRYA Senior Instructor
EndorsementMultihull
LevelAdvanced Instructor
01
12
Years Sailing
02
10
Years in Tech
03
5,000+
Students Trained
04
5
Languages

Languages Aboard

Real chart, scroll and zoom around it
H
Home Port
Portland, Dorset, UK
Base
1
Spanish
Spain
Conversational
2
French
France
Conversational
3
Dutch
Netherlands
Beginner
4
Icelandic
Iceland
Elementary
5
Italian
Italy
Minimal
02 / Under Sail

Sailing

RYA-qualified instructor with a multihull endorsement, teaching out of Portland, Dorset.

01

RYA Senior Instructor

Qualified to teach and sign off students across the RYA's practical sailing scheme.

02

Multihull Endorsement

Additional certification specific to catamarans and trimarans: different boat, different rules.

03

Advanced Instructor

Top of the instructor ladder, training other instructors, not just students. Over 5,000 students trained to date.

03 / Below Decks

Code

Ten years building software before swapping the office for the cockpit: product, systems, and the occasional late deploy.

~/blade (zsh)
$ whoami
blade, sailing instructor now, ex-software engineer, 10y
$ cat focus.txt
Ackren (Aleten.com) / Airplus.uk
$ git log --oneline -2
ackren, aleten.com, live
airplus.uk, live
01

BSc Software Engineering

Bournemouth University, graduated 2025.

02

Digital Forensics Certificate

The Open University.

Ford

Digital Advanced Job Simulation

View Certificate

HP

Software Engineering Job Simulation

View Certificate

Mastercard

Cybersecurity Job Simulation

View Certificate

EA

Product Management Job Simulation

View Certificate

JP Morgan Chase & Co.

Agile Job Simulation

View Certificate
Aleten

Ackren

An AI built and run at Aleten.com. Positioned as the Serena replacement. [Tell me more and I'll fill this in]

Live
Airplus

Airplus.uk

Registered as Airplus Wessex / Airplus Technologies on Companies House. [Tell me what it does and the stack, I'll drop it in]

Live
Fleetfixer

Fleetfixer.io

Registered as Fleetfixer on Companies House. [Tell me what it does and the stack, I'll drop it in]

Live
04 / Get In Touch

Open water,
open source.