In July, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had another “staycation” on the Isles of Scilly, which is what they did in the summer of 2020. They apparently don’t want to look like they’re breaking travel restrictions, nor do they want to look overeager to vacation abroad, so they’re trying to be lazy within UK borders. We also heard that Will and Kate took the kids to Balmoral this past weekend. That still leaves about a six-week-long gap where we have no idea where the Cambridges were and what they were up to. They are such secret squirrels, it’s not even funny. Anyway, Katie Nicholl at VF got a lot of updates from Middleton Manor’s media operation, and so now we know that Duchess Kate taught her children how to sail over the summer. Hm.
When Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis return to school this month, they can be proud of having learned something new during their summer holidays. Vanity Fair can reveal that Kate Middleton has been teaching her children how to sail and has even given Prince William a few lessons too. According to a local source, the family spent several days in early August sailing a small boat on the north Norfolk coast. William, who dressed in trendy beach shorts and a cap, was spotted steering the boat, taking Kate and the children for a sail.
“They are very much a family of sailors now,” says the source. “Kate has always been a competent sailor and William’s pretty good too. They have enjoyed some wonderful time on the coast this summer sailing and showing the children how to steer and sail a boat. They love the water and the two eldest are good swimmers and had no qualms about jumping into the sea even if it was a bit fresh.”
While on the sailboat, George, 8, Charlotte, 6, and Louis, 3, wore life jackets but when it came time for swimming, the trio shunned wetsuits and opted for bathing suits as they splashed around in the sea. “The kids were all running in and out of the water with their dog and spent hours playing in the sand. They are clearly a family that love being outdoors and in nature. It was lovely to see them playing so freely and not being bothered by anyone,” the source adds.
In a few days George and Charlotte will return to Thomas’s Battersea school in southwest London. George is starting Year 4, while Charlotte will be in Year 2. Prince Louis will return to Willcocks Nursery School, where he was enrolled in April. Meanwhile, as previously reported, the family is considering moving out of their Kensington Palace apartment and relocating to Windsor.
Nicholl mentions that the Cambridges were in Norfolk the whole time for that six-week gap where we didn’t hear anything from them. Interesting. So this is what they were doing – hanging out at Anmer Hall, renting sailboats and swimming and such. Convenient that Nicholl spoke to an eyewitness who managed to detail all of this family outing, right? Oh well. As for the stuff about sailing… yes, Kate is a “keen sailor.” She loves the water, she’s sporty, and she loves to spend any time she can with Sir Ben Ainslie.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
The source was very detailed. How did Katie manage to find this person?
The calls are coming from inside the (Middleton Manor) house.
These accounts of happy family/loving couple/doting mom sightings from “a local” pop up every few months. There’s rarely ever any photos, but always a lot of detail from the “local” who saw the whole thing and provides their own insight. Not sure how this local knows that Kate has “always” been a good sailor just from seeing her on the boat once and oddly seems to have spent hours watching this family outing. Do better next time, Carole.
If a local person was watching them enough to pay attention to the kids wearing bathing suits instead of wet suits then they would get arrested.
Carole next time don’t be so obvious.
@Nic that was exactly what I was about to say- it’s so obvious that it’s actually quite funny. There is absolutely no random bystander who would have gotten that close for days on end, bothered to figure out how to get in touch with the press and then remembered evvvvvvvery detail (and the corresponding history to give it context) for Katie. Too funny.
Because the random bystander was at sea, silly! They manoeuvred their vessel to within spitting distance so that they could monitor Kate’s sailing competency and the clothing that the two kids were wearing. They cruised after HMS Cambridge for the full six weeks to enable sustained surveillance.
I know, it’s a massive load of bollocks, isn’t it. And yet people will go ‘ah isn’t it lovely bla bla bla’.
@Aidevee maybe the source smuggled themselves onto the Cambridges’ boat and hidden? They’re so dim I doubt they’d notice.
(My apologies to George and Charlotte; they’d be smart enough to suss it out)
@Amy Bee, thank you for the laugh. I needed that this morning. I can’t recall what I ate for breakfast sometimes BUT this source could recall so much detail. SOURCE indeed.
I was honestly beginning to think that nanny Maria was the source.
Good to know Kate has stayed busy while her charities continue to close. Maybe next summer the entire family can have a yacht race.
And I doubt they spent the entire six weeks in Norfolk.
I have a feeling Will wasn’t with them the whole time.
I highly doubt he was there at all.
Yeah, there isn’t much going on down at the new early years centre which is in her house. It’s not as if any refugee early years children have been entering Britain needing support and comfort or anything, is it?
@Aidevee: 🔥🔥
Didn’t you read the article? Kate is too busy sailing for two months!
If I was a hugely mean person, I’d be wondering if Kate doesn’t really care about refugee children – they’re not proper British children so it doesn’t fall under her remit to think about their trauma therapy or emotional needs. Obviously I will need to give her the benefit of the doubt because that mindset is completely inhumane, but it does raise the question of where her interest in Early Years begins and ends.
Once Louis turns 6, Kate will move on from her interest in Early Years. Wait for it.
They are “very much a family of sailors now”. lol Just like ther “are very much not a racist family”
The peanut gallery reporting
You also beat me to it, lol! When I read that part, I thought,
“So they are very much a family of very not racist sailors.”
And I’m sure we’ll keep adding to the list of what they would “very much” like us to believe.
At least it’s a break from being “keen” on, and have “massive” respect/interest/sympathy for, various things, lol.
I would like to spend some time with Sir Ben Ainslie too!
He is nice to look at.
Throwing in handsome Ben Ainslee was strange. What are they implying? Hmmmm
Kate’s making moon eyes at Ben. Something she only ever does at Harry but never does with her husband.
What a load of tedious crap.
Pictures or it didn’t happen!
Yes, how nice for them that they’re “not being bothered by anyone”. Nobody is stalking them for photos or twisting everything they say and do into something negative or making up nasty stories about them. How lovely for them that they can disappear from the public eye for weeks without being attacked despite being the pair who are supposedly “working” royals.
not being bothered by anyone, but do not forget that they also they feel ovelooked.
It’s nice for them but also, does anybody care? We’re commenting about this because of the hypocrisy of it all but I don’t think anybody misses the Keens. The media has dozens of stories about H&M a day even though they are hardly seen as well. Nobody is clamoring for a Cambridge sighting.
@JT – Your are so correct. I would be willing to bet that garden-variety “Royal Watchers” are more interested in the York Princesses and their new husbands than the Keenbridges.
I know I am in more interested in the York girls.
@Equality, honestly. I bet Meghan would sell her soul to have ONE ARTICLE published about her entire summer, and that the article would sugarcoat the Sussexes’ actions to the point where the most scandalous thing mentioned is that Harry is wearing shorts.
It really does make me so angry, though, when they’re *this* blatant. Everyone going to town on them yesterday because of the Piers Morgan thing, then this concocted drivel conveniently the next morning 😒
So where was PW while she was teaching her expert sailing skills to her very young children? It will be interesting to see the renovation cost for their new property in Windsor.
Grooming Roses maybe? Sorry, misspelled it… roses.
Stripes McButtons taught her small children to sail? Maybe George got a few simple tasks, but younger than 8 is…unexpected.
Only George is close to an age to pick up a few things. The other two are still too young and not large enough to be able to even handle the equipment.
Also being rich and having a sailboat doesn’t mean the adults are equipped to properly teach them sailing. Do either even have a boating licence? Not having proper skills can lead to serious consequences.
Exactly so.
@Nic. My son took sailing lessons this summer (I’ve never sailed in my life, I’m more of an indoor girl, lol, but my husband grew up on the water and wanted him to learn.) There’s no way that W&K could just randomly teach them on their own; there’s so much technical stuff involved that really requires an instructor.
Even though my husband has sailed ever since he can remember, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think that meant he was qualified to teach our kid, and signed him up for lessons with actual trained instructors.
I wonder if it was also Trendy Bill who singlehandedly taught them how to play tennis 🙄
Boating is serious business and sailing even more so. I doubt either know how to do it properly. After all Kate is the one dumb enough to wear a massive engagement ring while sailing which could easily get caught up in rope and rip off her finger. So I really doubt either of them have a clue.
I highly doubt she taught them anything. I also highly doubted she sailed the boat herself. They most likely have a yacht and plenty of servants attending to them and the nannies. And room for the RPO’s. “Teaching them sailing” is probably letting them visit the captain.
What? No spitting rage over the cost of this elite lifestyle? Shocked I tell you!
I see Carole is back from Mustique and feeding KN new PR. There was nothing for two months and now suddenly in September there are stories pretending that they are not living separate lives.
+1
That picture with their backs to each other when they were in Scotland, tells me no happy family summer was being had by the keenbridges. If it was, then it was for the kids because those two look like they live in different countries from each other
Will in “trendy beach shorts and a cap”…I just can’t…
Elegant and now Trendy Bill, the sexiest bald man in the world.
@Kalana, you’re right, we need to update it! From now on he’s “Elegant (but also Trendy!) Bill.”
@Eurydice I lost it with the “cap,” I don’t know why, it was just such a funny little (fake) detail for this (nonexistent) witness to embellish the story a bit.
I don’t buy that they spent all 6 weeks in Norfolk either. They probably did go sailing (although all this information was either made up in Nicholl’s head or somebody aka Carole gave it to her) but again, I doubt they were in Norfolk the whole time.
Yup, that is why I call BS on this tale.
Hmm… so along with the Balmoral visit, this now makes 2 keen stories without any accompanying photos. Hard to say whether it’s because it’s BS and these ‘family’ vacations have been missing one person or the other, OR whether the cambridges are holding back exclusive photos for media bribery/bartering when needed. “In Case of Emergency, release photo of George on a sailboat.”
Time will tell, but it does seem rather odd given their history of staged photo ops and glossy Land Rover ads.
The top pic of Kate kinda gave me “I don’t care do u” vibes. Maybe she can cosplay Melania during Maxwell’s trial. As a show of support for Elizabeth (and her favorite son).
That pic was when she beat William in a race. I always liked it because it was one of the few times she didn’t give a f*** about showing him up. Wish she was like that more.
@Leanne: god she’d be SO much more interesting if she showed her real self, with some actual personality, more than maybe once for 30 seconds every five years or so.
I don’t think this tidbit is going to score the PR points they desire.
“Swallows and Amazons” versus female empowerment and tackling health inequalities? No contest.
They spent 6 weeks sailing, I guess they really are salty.
@Seraphina lmao
Well this will cheer the the neglected hospice patronage right up.
Queen should strip this selfish cow of her hrh.
The best line was that during Kate’s gap year she helped out as a skipper. She did not help as a skipper, she worked on a yacht helping with the guests, I read an article about her time on the yacht not too long ago.
After spending most of the pandemic struck in Norfolk they stayed there most of the summer? Not buying it. For someone who wants Scotland to stay in the union you would think they would have spent the summer in Scotland, visiting different places and ending at balmoral. Or as the future Prince and Princess of Wales, how about spending some time in Wales. They are so provincial, no interest in anything outside of their immediate environment.
So she was a stewardess like on Below Deck? It gives me great please to imagine Keen Kathy trapped in the laundry room and cleaning up after rich bitches.
Wales is still Chucky territory.
I believe I have seen that article about Kate’s time as an actual yacht girl (something that they projected on to Meghan of course) and it was really focused on how Kate wore very short shorts and had great legs. It sounds like she was some sort of hostess along with others.
Do you mean “yacht girl” like an escort?
Why do they need to aplaud her.
She was on a long holiday, not working and spending your tax money.
I dont understand why the people okay with this?
My takeaway too. All the horrible things worldwide happening that they are completely ignoring. Why is this charming and worth them being publicly funded??
I cackled loudly and raucously at the order of pics: Kate giving “Who knew I could keen sail” energy, then Kate trying not to plant a “hot” yachty kiss on that Ben guy, then Kate and Will cosplaying Mariah Carey’s “I don’t know her”. Thanks, for brightening my day, Kaiser!
@Athena-Right! She was a crew member/deckhand during her gap year. Katie Nicholl’s knows that too. She’s written about it before.
If you say so…
Is she actually a keen sailor or is sailing just the “thing” assigned to her by the courtiers to give her an a dual interest outside of shopping and watching YouTube clothing haul videos.
If she really is into sailing, then that’s another missed opportunity for her to do something great. Most people never get a chance to actually go on a boat and sail. She could be pairing up with sailing schools all over the country to allow inner city kids the chance to experience that.
I wonder what is going to happen ? Normally when flower PR happens of Kate a bombshell comes out. Right now the only rumor is a divorce so maybe this is cover up to emphasize the happy family angle.
Separate residences.
They are too young to learn to sail, just to be on a sailboat and go out on the water.
I believe it. My question is how does the British public tolerate supporting a family that doesn’t work much during the school year and is off the whole summer in multiple homes that exceeds former Royal Harry’s montecito mansion with 16 bathrooms, and Charles more excessive then this, as well as Anne, Avoiding the police Andy, Edward. Insane. Nuts.
I believe it. My question is how does the British public tolerate supporting a family that doesn’t work much during the school year and is off the whole summer in multiple homes that exceeds former Royal Harry’s montecito mansion with 16 bathrooms, and Charles more excessive then this, as well as Anne, Avoiding the police Andy, Edward. Insane. Nuts.
wasn’t kate disqualified when she sailed during the Kings cup boat race? I don’t believe she taught the kids and william how to sail. They are always trying to make her to be bigger than she is, and that’s how you know this came from the Mids.
Kaiser: brilliant use of pictures! Laughed out loud when I saw the Sir Ben Ainslie picture followed by the happy couple at sea. Thanks for that!
KeenKueen Katie got restless with lack of coverage(or curiosity😂) and thought releasing this obvious PR story would cut it. If anything its pissing off her base whom are majority racists MAGAland/anti meghan unemployed seniors who are living through her amd the lack of acess or sightseeings is annoying them. Her taxpaying stans might also be equally angry as they feel like they’re not getting any return on their “investments”!