A plug for cat sailing...some ideas

A serious plug for cat sailing and some good ideas to get kids into sailing. This was posted on Sailing Anarchy's front page:

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index_page1.php

Remember Fun?

In response to Dan Nash (see Reader Rant US Ailing below) , I would say that in order to get increased participation in sail racing you first have to get kids interested in sailing. Sailing has to be more fun than the Wii or Playstation II or III or whatever.

I taught sailing for a while (US Sailing Certified Small Boat deal) and I can tell you that adults screw it up for the kids. The parents all want their seed to be Olympic sailors by the age of 9 or they’re disappointed. In that respect it’s no different than any other ‘little league’ you-name-it-sport. As a result, of every 100 kids we taught to sail Optis maybe 1 actually wanted to go racing. The rest simply dropped out of the program. By the way, the kids hate all the rigging, unrigging and repairs needed to keep an Opti on the water, talk about UNFUN! And that’s not to mention the near drowning experience of righting and bailing one out when they capsize.

On the other hand, in our summer camp program, we left the Optis on the beach and took the kids sailing on Hobie Waves. These boats are far easier to sail and go fast enough to lend some excitement to the course. They are also better sail trainers because you can put two or even 4 kids on a Wave and that again adds to the enjoyment for the kids. When the wind piped up, the instructors would take one or two kids out and you should have seen their eyes pop when a Wave gets up on one hull. On blow out days, we left the sails on the beach and used the Hobies as swim rafts. As a result the kids actually dragged their parents back to the sailing center on weekends to rent a Hobie and go sailing. The only rigging and maintenance involved was rolling up sails and stowing them. Capsize drills are more fun too, when you have a partner or three to help.

Once the kids learn to sail and associate sailing with fun and good times then you can broaden their horizons with racing programs. Yacht Clubs are part of the problem. They are elitist. They in fact, discourage community participation. When was the last time you saw a bunch of inner city kids running around the ‘Yacht Club’?

The focus should be on public or Community Sailing Centers. These Sailing Centers need to be funded to buy boats like the Hobie Wave and they need to encourage participation from the entire community by starting programs in cooperation with organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs, or Boy and Girl Scouts, etc.

Our center even tried to get the local high schools to start sailing clubs. Unfortunately, that failed because school administrators balked at the idea of having kids off campus and around water. I guess they envisioned some sort of disaster scenario.

Sailing can be inexpensive. Sailing can be made affordable in the Community Sailing Center form by funding fleets of inexpensive, low maintenance, easy to sail, boats. Funding can be helped using community park space to serve as operations bases. Renting boats at low rates can also help but federal or state grants are really what’s needed. Local business will support such programs too. You can trade advertising space on sails, or banners or hulls for equipment.

Sure we need certified and otherwise vetted instructors. Parents aren’t going to turn their kids over to just anyone these days but otherwise leave the Yacht Clubs, US Sailing, and RACING out of it until you first make sailing fun.

I don’t mean for this to be a Hobie sales pitch. There are likely other designs that would work as well but I can tell you that if you make sailing fun first, you can introduce racing later and retain much more interest in the sport and maybe a few more medalists.

Ron Butler

08/29/08

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Hobie Cat is a recreational boat manufacturer - they make fun boats. Call me narrow-minded, but if I'm on a sailboat other than a cat, I'm bored. Since the Hobie 16 showed up at the family's lake-front summer home, the Laser that's been there for 15 years before the Hobie now sits forlornly gathering dust, and the Laser is supposed to be a fun boat.

This summer the neighbor's 10 year old twins got a ride on the 16 with me, and 10 minutes into it the boy was so frightened he jumped ship and swam to his dad on the Ski Doo, while the girl made me go back in and get the harness for her so she could learn to hike out and go faster. Some people. . . glad I'm one of them.

Jeremy,
As someone that's been involved in community service for close to 20 years, you are spot on with forwarding this ideal! The 'rant' does a great job pointing out the fallicy of the racing platform in favor of just plain fun. Get 'em hungry and the rest will take care of itself.

I've tried over the years to get our YMCA to institute a youth sailing program. As a board member I do have access to influence policy, but the risk managers get the upper hand.

Thanks for the inspiration.

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Chris
'88 H18SE Arís

Jeremy,

I would think that schools should be able to be convinced--if you take the right path. They are all afraid of liability, but schools still have Surf PE and school sponsored surf clubs and contests. It should be doable and cheaper than football and other cost intensive sports.

Dan

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Dan St. Gean
'82 H 18
'96 H Wave

I'll post here because I was of one of those "1 in 100" racing kids at the local community sailing club. I started sailing seven years ago on White 14's in a summer camp program, and at first I didn't like it much. But once I found out how easy it was simply to sail, I perceived "fast" as "fun" as many kids these days do. On a weekly basis, that camp program will take in about 25 new kids from Worcester and the surrounding areas, but you'll only see about maybe 10% to 15% of them go on to become what we called "junior members", which was the summer long program for 12 to 18 year olds.

The system worked because those old Whites were hard to flip, but still provided enough boat speed to be fun for new sailors, while slow enough to keep it safe. I remember distinctly that the reason I wanted to stay in the program at the time was the prospect of sailing the "supercat", the only catamaran the club had at the time. You see, if you teach kids how to sail, you should in my opinion not only teach them how to sail a slow boat, but take them as the crew on fast boats every once in awhile to keep them interested, and they are more likely to stay in the program. I witnessed it time and time again as during some weeks, they took a few kids on a laser or 420 or catamaran, and those kids almost always stayed with it.

At the end of the summer two years ago, I was finally given permission to get my own boat, and the choice for me was obvious. Nothing was more fast, fun, and durable than a hobie in my opinion. I ended up getting an 18 for it's balance in trailoring and speed, and ironically just after I got mine, the sailing program got a hobie 18 of their own, donated to them by some kind gentleman (wish I knew who he was). Besides the small hole in the bow of the starboard hull (fixed by electrical tape because they don't have the money to fix it, even though they have the resources), when sailed on for short periods of time, it is by general consensus to be the most fun boat that they have there. So I agree with you Ron, keep the kids interested and they'll stick with it, and hobie really is a great way of doing it.

And the ironic part about all this: They got a local MIDDLE school to sponsor/send about 20 of their kids last summer for a summer long sailing program (Bancroft Middle School). If you need inspiration for getting high schools involved in sailing, point your finger towards them to show that even middle schoolers are doing it! Can't guarantee it'll provide results though unfortunately, I wish more schools would sponsor students interested in sailing.

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Sail Fast, Live Slow.

~Nate