It takes a village

Rachel and Matt Goetting own Sailorcise, a business that combines coaching, fitness, and nutrition to improve a sailors performance. Like most people in the marine industry, they love sailing too and compiled this love list:

Rachel and Matt Goetting

• You can do it with family and friends.
• It’s a sport you can do for your entire life.
• Every day on the water is different.
• You can race or just cruise.
• There is so many different boats to try.
• We love being on the water.
• Anyone can sail!
• We love working on our boats.
• You can learn to sail at any age in life.
• There is so many cool places sailing can take you.
• Sailing is Fun.

“There are so many reasons to love sailing,” they echo. “Unfortunately, we have seen a decline in our wonderful sport of sailing. Kids are dropping out once they start to age out of junior programs and adults can find the sport of sailing too expensive or time-consuming to continue. This is a sad thing to hear as we know there are so many reasons to love the sport of sailing.”

Here are their ideas on ways to help grow the sport of sailing:

• Take at least one person who has never sailed before out sailing. If you can take more go for it!
• Help to expose kids to different boats so they see there are different paths they can take.
• Volunteer at your yacht club or community sailing center to teach a class where adults or kids learn to sail.
• Find ways you can grow sailing in your community, example start an after-school program, launch an adaptive program, start an adult program, hold an intro to sailing class.
• Show kids that sailing isn’t all about racing make it fun!
• Anyone can sail, find ways to make it more accessible for everyone in your community.

“We need to help to grow this sport so generations after us will enjoy it,” they preach. “Sailing is exciting, freeing, and an awesome sport so let’s all make the sailing world bigger this year!”