Performance and play in Kaneohe

Kaneohe Yacht Club (Kaneohe, HI) and its sailing coach have found a different way to keep the stoke in the kids to keep them in the sport. Report by Chris Museler for Sailing World:

Using the term “epic” too often makes one a kook. It’s equally uncool to overhype one’s sailing experiences because, let’s face it, there’s always someone who has won more, sailed faster or gone to a cooler place. The summer of 2022, however, was truly epic for Jesse Andrews, the Pied Piper of Hawaii’s Kaneohe Bay, whose followers stormed North America and Europe, and ascended to performance sailing’s world stage.

Under Andrews’ direction, these young sailors are charging hard in the Waszp and Olympic iQFoil classes today, and getting serious looks to fill slots on the rosters of youth and women’s America’s Cup development teams.

Kaneohe sailing’s epic and timely ascent into everyone’s collective radar has been a long time coming, but the whole phenomenon was accelerated when the US Sailing Olympic Development Program doubled down on performance youth sailing in 2022. Kaneohe, naturally, was the first proving ground. – Full report