Youth Sailing Program Proposal & Budget

[FlyingShoes]

Nick Hayes addressed these themes in his great book, Saving Sailing. It's well worth a read if you are involved in youth sailing and haven't read it yet.

One takeaway is that programs that have double handed boats retain more sailors as they enter their teens, the thinking being that kids have tremendous social needs at that age, which singlehanded doesn't fulfill for a meaningful segment of kids. IIRC the data suggests this is especially true for girls, which rings true anecdotally. Sadly, neither our community club nor our school has youth doublehanders available, which is something I very much want to change. I'm very envious of the Aussies with their Flying Ants, Flying Elevens, Fevas, and more, not to mention a 29er scene for the older ones.

As to teaching two-up, while I am merely an engaged supporter and not a sailing coach, and have no doubt @Steam Flyer acquired his wisdom honestly, our school is using it to good effect in a structured way. The little ones do their first session(s) two-up in Optis, then they singlehand in the Optis, and then move on to single handing O'pen Skiffs. Along the way, an occasional advanced kid jumps in with a troubled beginner to guide them in their own kid language. What I see is that being two-up in the beginning alleviates fears and generates camaraderie, that sailing singlehanded becomes an achievement, and that graduating to the O'pen Skiffs is an enticing goal. It's unconventional, but it works for us.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Nick Hayes addressed these themes in his great book, Saving Sailing. It's well worth a read if you are involved in youth sailing and haven't read it yet.
...

It is a good book, and it has a number of positive ideas and suggestions on how to apply them.

But the book hinges on a central concept that I disagree with, and unless you take some his actual good ideas and parse them out seperately, not much to gain IMHO. I was in the process of assembling a volunteer youth sailing program (and helping ramp up an already-existing one) when I read that book. The wrong concept is that sailing is a great way for families to recreate together. It's not false, because sailing -IS- great for that. What's wrong is that families prefer to avoid each other these days. Sacrilege but true. When I was trying to get parents to volunteer so they could spend quality time with their kids, I got far more argument than useful help.

2 kids in an opti is also a really bad idea IMHO... with the exception of sailing exercises that are preparation (familiarization) rather than actually sailing. Paddling around in an opti hull, for example. But 2 kids trying to sail an opti first puts the boat out of balance, and second just gives both students a built-in distraction and panic-inducer. There are far more ways for it to go wrong than just 1 kid.

Keeping a sailing program running is a lot of work. There is far more to it than on-water coaching, so I hope your contributions are valued.

 

[CaptainAhab]

We run our L2S weeks using both the Pacers(double handed) and Opti's. Typically, we put an Assistant Instructor(12-14yr old good sailor with certification) in a double handed boat with 2 kids. They switch roles until the kids are confident enough to get in an Opti by themselves.

There is no better/faster way to teach someone how to steer a boat than siting next to them.

In Australia the Pacers are the standard L2S boat and are also used for team sailing in high school. The injection moulded plastic Opti like boats are very common for the little kids. They are indestructible and designed to be comfortable for two of them. We've always used the school Opti, which is the Far East racing hull paired with a cheaper rig, sail, blades.

 

[Steam Flyer]

...
There is no better/faster way to teach someone how to steer a boat than siting next to them.
...

I ran a number of exercises in steering with a tiller. None involved trying to control a boat under sail, until they were familiar enough with it to steer confidently toward their goal without looking down at the tiller.

One was to have two or three helpers stand in shallow water near the beach (of which we have plenty) in approximately a circle, and push an unrigged Opti (except for the rudder and a shortened daggerboard) back and forth while a student practiced steering. This enabled reinforcing a bunch of things at once, sitting in the proper place, proper use of the hiking stick, and all under the close eyes of their peers to whom they wanted to look good.

We kept the turns short so nobody got bored and they made progress without realizing it was anything but a game one could play with boats.

I like the idea of having a cadre of slightly-older youths who can serve as instructors under controlled circumstances.

 

[CaptainAhab]

I ran a number of exercises in steering with a tiller. None involved trying to control a boat under sail, until they were familiar enough with it to steer confidently toward their goal without looking down at the tiller.

One was to have two or three helpers stand in shallow water near the beach (of which we have plenty) in approximately a circle, and push an unrigged Opti (except for the rudder and a shortened daggerboard) back and forth while a student practiced steering. This enabled reinforcing a bunch of things at once, sitting in the proper place, proper use of the hiking stick, and all under the close eyes of their peers to whom they wanted to look good.

We kept the turns short so nobody got bored and they made progress without realizing it was anything but a game one could play with boats.

I like the idea of having a cadre of slightly-older youths who can serve as instructors under controlled circumstances.

In Australia we have certified Assistant Instructors. They need to be 12 years old. The course is about 7hrs. I just ran one last week for 5 kids and 1 adult. It's good because it gets everyone on the same page as far as how the information is delivered. The Senior Instructors also explain to the Assistant Instructors their role in helping the Instructors. What they can be doing, what not to do, etc.

 

[pqbon]

The RYA program has AI training also...

 

[Stanno]

Flying Shoes - Down here in Australia there are a few Clubs, my own included, who have been reinvigorated by the models from https://www.slmsailing.com/ Reach out to Don via the contact pages ...

This was my New Year's note to members, which gives you an idea of how our Club has become a vibrant, self sustaining community sailing club ...

"2022 - what a year!!

Dear Members

It's been another fantastic year for Hunters Hill Sailing Club - "The Little Club that Can!" We've grown again, to 415 members and more (from 124 in 2018 and 368 in 2021/22) and now have 216 sailors aged 18 and under as members of the Club ... 40.2% of our members are women, and our Board reflects that at 45% women. Our sailors come from 78 suburbs across Sydney!

We introduced 118 sailors to sailing in 2022 via our TrySailing program, and had 165 kids attend our sailing camps (noting we had to cancel January's huge camps due to Covid. And our assistant instructors, Instructors and Coaches are, in the vast majority, home grown - an important plank of our retention strategy for teenagers and uni students.

On the water, we had athletes represent the Club at Open World Championships (Sylvie Stannage, ILCA 6; Amelia Quinlan IQFoil), Opti World Championships (our very first sailor to do so, Healy Ryan), 29er Worlds (Caitlin Hartnett & Stella Hurley; Tom Quinlan & Ben Harrington; Aiden Hodzic & Ethan Lozevski), U/21 ILCA 6 Worlds (Sylvie Stannage). We also had HHSC sailors compete at World Cup events in Palma & Hyeres, and in European events in ILCA 6 and 29er classes. With a 'normal' summer ahead of us, we can't wait to see our large ILCA fleet hit the water at GRSC next week, and the Optis & 9ers at Pittwater and South Lake Macquarie respectively the following week. Our foiling board sailors will also be blasting around, and many of our team will be at Sail Melbourne in January as well.

Our strong partnership with the Hunters Hill High School continues, with about 90-100 sailors coming through over the course of the year. We've been delighted to welcome several into our sailing club, and took great delight to see young Tilly competing at State Championship level in the ILCA 4's this summer. This program embeds us deeply within our local community, and allows the School to challenge and inspire its students in a way not often accessible to State schools in NSW - we are proud to be involved!

We conducted Club racing for Optimists, ILCA's (lasers) and other single handers, Flying 11's, Mirrors, 29ers and 49er / FX skiffs. We also held a fantastic "Pleasant Sunday Morning" winter race series, where the mighty OK dinghies from our neighbour Drummoyne Sailing Club came and raced. We also had the great joy of winning the InterClub "Monarch of the River" laser competition, where our team included not only ILCA / laser sailors, but IQFoilers, Nacra 15 sailors, a dad or two and a bunch of 4.7 rookies!!! Great fun, and a wonderful team building event!

Off the water, we worked closely with other SLM Clubs (esp. Mornington Yacht Club ) to lead negotiations with Australian Sailing on a new, fairer Discover Sailing Centre Agreement, which has now been rolled out across Australia. We also asked Australian Sailing when it would be rolling out a Reconciliation Action Plan - still waiting to hear on that one - and changed our FB and Insta profiles to reflect that our Club sits on land within, and sails on the waters of, the Wallamatugal people.

We are grateful for the support we received in 2022 from the Hunters Hill Council, the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and the NSW State Government. Our supporters Ward Real Estate, Boatropes and BoatcrewGear keep our club and our sailors in fine shape!

Thank you to all of our wonderful Committee Members, volunteers and supporters!! Have a wonderful New Years Eve, and we look forward to seeing you on the water in 2023!!



Chris Stannage, President HHSC"

 

[pqbon]

So we run a reasonablely successful youth programam.

For introductory sailing we run the RYA OnBoard program.
We run regular RYA Stages for Jr training.
We also have an active Jr race training program.

We pay instructors for the RYA training that results in an RYA certificate. The rest is volunteer based. Our big expenses are the training boat fleet and the power boats. We are part of a larger sailing club so we don't bare the costs directly as part of the youth program but we do track our expenses as training centre and junior training. This past year our dominent expense was fuel the power boats.

 

[FlyingShoes]

@Stanno, if that doesn't warm the heart, we're in the wrong place! That's a great letter (and great to be in a position to write it.) @pqbon, the RYA program is class leading, no doubt. I expect that's the direction we're headed.

 

[Lamps]

2 kids in an opti is also a really bad idea IMHO... with the exception of sailing exercises that are preparation (familiarization) rather than actually sailing. Paddling around in an opti hull, for example. But 2 kids trying to sail an opti first puts the boat out of balance, and second just gives both students a built-in distraction and panic-inducer. There are far more ways for it to go wrong than just 1 kid.

For 6-7 year olds in an intro one or two week course two kids in an Opti or similar pram and should be ok, it should just be about having fun. Good economics for your program too in this format.

After that ideally one kid per Opti and two kids per doublehanded boat, that maximizes learning. E.g RS Feva for a doublehanded kids boat. For 420s you may need a third kid if they are young, just to have enough weight. Better to have two kids in a smaller boat however.

 

[Steam Flyer]

For 6-7 year olds in an intro one or two week course two kids in an Opti or similar pram and should be ok, it should just be about having fun. Good economics for your program too in this format.

After that ideally one kid per Opti and two kids per doublehanded boat, that maximizes learning. E.g RS Feva for a doublehanded kids boat. For 420s you may need a third kid if they are young, just to have enough weight. Better to have two kids in a smaller boat however.

Putting kids that are too small to sail it, into a 420, is a disaster waiting to happen. If they do not have the reach to handle the tiller, for example, or the body weight to pull it upright after a capsize, "putting more in" is only making the problem worse not better.

 

[Lamps]

Putting kids that are too small to sail it, into a 420, is a disaster waiting to happen. If they do not have the reach to handle the tiller, for example, or the body weight to pull it upright after a capsize, "putting more in" is only making the problem worse not better.

I agree, and my comment I was speaking to the fact that a lot of programs have 420s and compensate with an extra kid, this can be a solution for medium sized kids.

Ideally young/small kids are taught in a purpose built double handed boat that has a optimal combined sailor weight range of 125-175 pounds. Reality is many clubs don’t have such a boat.

 

[Steam Flyer]

I agree, and my comment I was speaking to the fact that a lot of programs have 420s and compensate with an extra kid, this can be a solution for medium sized kids.

Ideally young/small kids are taught in a purpose built double handed boat that has a optimal combined sailor weight range of 125-175 pounds. Reality is many clubs don’t have such a boat.

There area bunch of 'em, but none have been successful classes in North America nor commercial successes, so they're unreasonably hard to find and assemble a fleet. I wrote up a list of 25 types of "post-Opti" training boats to move our youth sailors into, with an eye towards evaluating as many as we could before committing.

 Safety #1- They must be self-rescuing & preferably self-bailing.

 Safety #2- They must have reasonable capsize characteristics… ie not too tippy, yet not so much hull-form stability that they are difficult to right. They should be relatively easy to keep control of thru a capsize drill. They should be easy to re-board from the water.

 Long-term costs… they must be inexpensive to maintain, both in dollars and in volunteer work-hours

 Availability… this applies to both purchase price and being able to find a suitable number in our area to acquire.

 Performance- A boat that does not reward correct helm, trim, and balance, is going to be a boat that does not teach these skills. This especially applies to our local conditions which are prevalently light-air.

 A third consideration is flexibility in use. Can they carry adults as well as juniors?

 Size/weight to be hand-launched by students; need for tow vehicles would greatly complicate launch/retrieval as well as presenting a hazard in the lot with students mingling among moving motor vehicles.

I purchased a Hobie 405 and an Alcort Puffer to sail myself and also trial as a junior boat. They both worked fine, the Puffer was actually preferred by the kids and had better capsize behavior, and with an improved rudder it handled better than the Hobie 405 although it was faster. Two other parents also bought a Jet 14 (against my advice, I knew it would be miserable and it was) and a Bombardier/Mistral 404 (which was awesome, but an orphan... we couldn't find any more).

We evaluated the 29er and the RS Feva, with some field trips to their native habitat. Great boats but it was decided they were too expensive. The 29er is a little complex for beginners but I'd have used them gladly if we could have gotten them.

The Puffer(s) would have been great but needed substantial work, new rudder, new sails, some remedial fiberglassing, etc etc, before we could have put them into service. Plus the effort of finding/buying/bringing them. They don't self-bail but IMHO this has a good side because it prevents the kids from wanting to capsize all day instead of sailing.

The program ended up waiting a couple of years while the original group of kids outgrew the Opti, then bought a fleet of Topper Uno Topazes which are wonderful little boats.