Portland, Dorset

Blade Harvell

Full-time RYA Senior Instructor with a multihull endorsement, and ten years in tech, running side by side, not one after the other.

Sailing Credentials Build Log
01 / Who's Aboard

Me

I'm Blade Harvell, working out of Portland, Dorset. I run two things at once, not one after the other: full-time sailing instruction, twelve years on the water, and tech, ten years in and still active.

I hold my RYA Senior Instructor (SI) rating with a Multihull endorsement, training students and other instructors. Over 5,000 students trained.

On the tech side, I have a BSc in Software Engineering from Bournemouth University (2025) and a Digital Forensics certificate from the Open University. I also speak a few languages, picked up sailing and traveling.

Home PortPortland, Dorset
RoleSailing Instructor (Full-Time) / Software Engineer (10y)
RatingRYA Senior Instructor
EndorsementMultihull
01
12
Years Sailing
02
10
Years in Tech
03
~5,348
Students Trained
04
5
Languages

Languages Aboard

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

Certification for catamarans and trimarans.

03

The Paperwork

RYA, STCW, first aid and university certificates, kept on file with blurred previews.

Browse & request access

Highlights

On the water, on record Full timeline
Press

National News Coverage

Programmes I've run have made national news in Iceland, recurring coverage on Vísir.is.

Featured
Results

International Competitors

Students trained have gone on to compete at international level, including Icelandic sailors selected for the Nordic Youth Sailing Championship 2026 in Stenungsund, Sweden (28 July to 1 August).

Ongoing
Teaching

Multilingual Instruction

Taught in English, Icelandic, and Spanish.

Active
Our RS21 close to the camera under a white and cyan spinnaker, the five of us hiked along the windward rail, chalk cliffs behind.Kite up on the reach Us running downwind on 163 under a full white spinnaker, Weymouth Bay hills behind and two yellow kites from other boats on the horizon.163 running under the big kite Three RS21s sailing upwind in close overlap, our hull number 2 and hull 6 nearest, green Dorset farmland rising behind them.Three boats overlapped upwind Two of our RS21s sailing among the wider regatta fleet, including a keelboat under a pink spinnaker and a larger white yacht, Portland behind.Sharing the course with the handicap fleet Two RS CAT 16 catamarans under blue and yellow sails on flat water, crews sitting out along the windward hull, the Dubai skyline and the Burj Khalifa in haze behind them.RS CAT 16s off Dubai Me ducked under the boom in a Laser, one hand on the tiller extension and the other on the mainsheet, a city waterfront out of focus behind.Under the boom Me sat almost dead centre in a Laser coming through a gybe, the mainsheet in one hand and the tiller extension held out behind me, the boat flat on smooth water.Coming through the gybe A coach in a red drysuit standing in an inflatable RIB towing a line of five Optimist dinghies out past a rock breakwater, wooded green shore and low hills behind.Towing out
03 / Below Decks

Code

Ten years building software, running alongside twelve years on the water. Not one after the other, both.

~/blade (zsh)
$ whoami
blade, sailing instructor and software engineer, both current
$ cat focus.txt
Ackren (Aleten.com) / Airplus.uk
$ git log --oneline -2
ackren, aleten.com, live
airplus.uk, live

Education

Bournemouth, and the Open University
01

BSc Software Engineering

Bournemouth University, graduated 2025.

02

Digital Forensics Certificate

The Open University.

Certifications

Ford

Digital Advanced

View Certificate

HP

Software Engineering

View Certificate

Mastercard

Cybersecurity

View Certificate

EA

Product Management

View Certificate

JP Morgan Chase & Co.

Agile

View Certificate

Everything not shown above is listed on its own page with blurred previews. Pick what you need and send a request, and I'll email a private link back.

Browse & Request Access

Build Log

Aleten

Ackren

A deterministic conversational engine built at Aleten. Instead of generating replies from a model, it parses input against a published grammar and answers from a visible, attributable ledger, built for regulated settings where explainability matters more than raw capability.

Live
Airplus

Airplus.uk

Airplus builds ALEX, a medical-grade indoor air quality monitor for the first 1,000 days of a child's life. Eight sensors track particulates, CO2, VOCs, temperature, and humidity, with on-device AI flagging issues before they're noticeable.

Live
Fleetfixer

Fleetfixer.io

An all-in-one platform for sailing clubs: fault reporting, coaching and performance tracking, session booking, and a free library of guides, all under one login. Built to replace the spreadsheet stack most clubs run on.

Live
04 / Get In Touch

Let's stay
in touch.

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