This is good news for the sport

by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
As yacht club junior programs in the USA emphasize prams and Club FJs or 420s, the racing schedule provides a great opportunity for kids that love racing and are sufficiently small for the boats. But for the kids that embrace this programming, there is a significantly larger group that don’t.

The good news is how sailing is massively diverse – keelboats, adult dinghies, catamarans… you name it. However, the bad news is that kids don’t tend to be exposed to other options and ultimately decide sailing isn’t for them.

The plan in the 1980s to improve the youth structure across the USA is now on steroids, with a full focus on age-based events to the exclusion of everything else. The carrot on the stick is college entrance, which is quite a perk when excellence on the race course translates to enhanced admission.

The good news (again!) is for the kids that tapped out along the way, sailing is like all the other activities that initially missed their mark. Both my kids are now deep into their 20s, and after they left sailing in their tween years, have come back to the water on their own terms.

In a story by Lucas Massielo for Sailing World, he details how collegiate sailors are discovering life beyond the youth boat bubble, and how this is good news (final!) for the sport: click here.