Staying active during the off-season

Maeve Cashin, Director of Membership Sales and Marketing at Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto, shares initiatives to keep the members active during the long off-season…

A winter sailing education series was launched a year ago in an effort to engage our sailors during the winter months. The series consists of tactic talks, video nights, certification and a speaker series (i.e. Jimmy Spithill, Dave Perry, etc). This year we wanted to apply a more practical element to the series and what started as an “outside the box” brainstorming idea, has grown into a regular event: radio control racing in the City Club pool.

The one design Dragon Force 65 was selected as the RC boat of choice and a midweek schedule of races was announced. Purchase information was distributed to members, resulting in over 60 boats getting bought. Some have even customized the sails!

Wind is simulated through industrial size fans, marks are set, and heats are run racing four at a time. The race is streamed via You Tube and run live to the Club pub. The true success is watching ages ranging from 7 to 70, many of them parent/child teams, coming out week after week and enjoying the camaraderie of simply messing around with boats.