MOST IMPORTANT:
A willingness from the club leadership to support this training for a minimum (time and
energy) investment of five years. Members within the club need to be identified who can act as advocates for this program. Not so much on a day-to-day basis but rather within the politics of the club.
MANAGEMENT:
1. A dedicated (and potentially salaried) Program manager. It is unlikely this position would be filled by the usual college sailor summer job role. It needs someone with skills around, and
experience in, Keel boat sailing. Or perhaps a pair of adult members with requisite keel boat skills alternating as work and other obligations demand. Or one willing adult member with sufficient time availability and skills around keel boats.
2. A roster of suitably skilled owners and or crew willing to take on the role of instructors.
There needs to be a roster of women instructors too in the event a squad attracts girls.
(My high school team is over 70% girls this season. And there are several initiatives on
the bay to develop sailing opportunities for women). At the least a woman ought to be
aboard in such a situation.
Important elements of such volunteers must be:I suggest anytime a boat is going out with 6 or more students there ought to be two adults. A minimum of one to maintain operational control, be the eyes and ears on the water as well as a dedicated instructor.
FUNDING:
This instruction should be charged for at a rate commensurate with the fees the club
charges for its’ Regular” summer sailing camps.
An inventory of members with suitable keel boats is a huge help, too. The intended range of suitable boats might be from something like a J-27, Laser 28 up through a typical club performance cruiser racer of the type commonly found in local handicap racing. Almost any J-boats product, Camp; C’s X-boats, old IOR boats, Archambau, and so on.
Frankly the willingness of the owners to make the boat available is more relative then the detailed particulars of each boat.
The ideal boats will have: winches, spinnakers, Asym. or symmetrical multiple headsails
and the equipment for reefing mainsails, the inventory of Safety kit required for racing
on the bay (and overnight). Small day sailing keel boats, Sonars, J-22’s and the like will work but are not ideal. In mast and in boom furling mainsails are not preferred or desired but will work.
THE MARKET:
For the purposes of this paper Juniors are the cohort of typical sailing facility summer
Camp participants, but in the age bracket 12-18, so basically high school age sailors.
Although frankly there is no reason why college age student could not participate.
Equally students for this keel boat sailing may be taken from graduates of the facilities
“learn to sail” adventure sailing programs. The kids who are not drawn to the knife fight
that is intense one design racing.
Basic Qualifications of students: The keel boat sailor students need to have a basic understanding of sailing, ability to name the parts of a boat and sails, tie knots and swim. Realizing that most clubs spend most of their energy in summer around coaching club teams for NBYA Jr. travel regattas in dinghies, the goal would be not to distract from this cohort, rather to attract new sailors otherwise not involved in summer sailing.
Offering this training to individuals outside the club membership families is critical to the idea.
MANAGEMENT:
Such sailing opportunities should be offered within the club’s “standard” summer Camp
structure, website links and back-office functions.
I.E. Marketed on the clubs Website and whatever other outlets the club uses.
Registration and payment can be identical to other existing programs the club offers.
The instruction content of the programs may be taken directly from the work book
already in existence, produced by US Sailing.
One particular option I think is good value for allhands is bringing a couple of the sailors on non-racing activities. Delivery to and from regatta, boat yard, sail trials, crew practice outings. Let them watch and learn.
SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS:
Storm Trysail Foundation has a program of SAS designed for junior sailors. There used
to be one in Newport, but it petered out from lack of local STC member interest. It still
exists in Larchmont but that is geographically difficult for RI Families. Not impossible,
just not ideal. Such a program may be reinstituted locally with sufficient interest.
In any event, the student must be introduced to the basic theory of: How to use a winch,
Rules of the Road, as distinct from RRS, firefighting, MOB recovery AND how to not
become a MOB in the first place, Basic navigation and aids to navigation, Medical injury,
broken spars, steering failure, VHF radio protocols, what flares do and theory of how to
use them and so on.
The S.T. Foundation has a considerable inventory of online media, including videos on these subjects. As does the Cruising Club of America. Videos may of course be use for rainy day scenarios although rain ought not stop keelboat instruction.
LONGER TERM:
I am told there was once a trophy on the bay for junior keel boat racing. This came up
during a meeting planning for the Ida Lewis Distance race whose organizing committee
I sit, with the brief of recruiting entries in the youth challenge class. A sub class with
40% of the crew under 20 (or 26 for the collegiate equivalent. As a side bar, in the 2025
Ida race, of 35 entries total 11 (31%) were college or HS entries comprising 44 sailors
under 26, or 19% of the total crew count. Of this 44, 12% were women.
With a suitable supply of capable junior crew there is no reason why this trophy might
be resurrected, or if lost, a new one presented.
A program such as outlined above also provides a pool of ready-made crew to replace the crew members aging out, dying or buying center consoles and moving to the South.
Joe Coop Cooper
Coop.joecoopersailing@gmail.com