Young sailors get valuable experience

More than 300 women in the region got to experience sailing as part of the recent global Steering the Course Women Sailing Festival.

Fantastic activities took place across the Caribbean over the last two weeks in Barbados, St. Vincent, British Virgin Islands, St. Maarten and Antigua when the islands joined forces with World Sailing to encourage women on to the water as part of the Festival of Sailing, Steering the Course.

President of the Caribbean Sailing Association (CSA) Alison Sly-Adams said: “In speaking with the other islands and our experience in Antigua too, we were over-whelmed by the positive reaction. It does seem we have reached a tipping point where many women realise that sailing is a sport they can embark on at any age.”

She added: “We are delighted that World Sailing began this initiative and reached out through the Member National Authorities (MNA)  to encourage countries across the world to participate and we are delighted that the Caribbean response was so strong.”

There is a second opportunity to support the festival in October, and many islands have already expressed an interest in doing so.

The Barbados Sailing Association and Set Sail training programmes incorporated the following two events into the World Sailing Steering the Course Festival, in order to highlight the island’s female youth sailors and to add depth to their sail training experience.

On Saturday May 29, seven young females learned the art of radio controlled boat sailing and racing at a freshwater pond on the east coast. Peter “Rabbit” Allen and Jason Tindale were on hand to show the girls how to control the boats with the two toggles, then they were off and running. The youth sailors were quite adept at the hand controls, and showed off their sailing knowledge by keeping the boats on the course and out of the weeds.

The following day there was a training regatta in nearshore Carlisle Bay, with 10 youthful females equally participating in two classes: the Optimist and Taz dinghies. The wind was clocked at over 35 knots in the bay, so it was no wonder that the safety boats spent a fair amount of time assisting and monitoring the sailors as they capsized more than once, especially in the Taz fleet.

And yet, not a single one of the sailors complained about the strong winds, the capsizing or the fact that some did not even get over the start line of the single race managed in the conditions. Instead, there were ear-splitting smiles of how well they managed, that they were sure they would never have a problem “uncapsizing” their boats again, and that heavy winds were not insurmountable. (PR)