Take that in contrast to the O’pen BIC – with 10 minutes of instruction, you have kids tacking, jibing, sailing all over the place with satisfaction.Īt my home club (Vineyard Haven YC), we also have a solid windsurfing program, and it’s great to see other strong programs in the Northeast such as Community Boating Boston, American YC, Port Washington YC, and others. It is true, with windsurfing, you need at least that first good instruction to have enough success to sail back to your starting point. So now, even though learning to windsurf is easier than ever, one of the holdbacks is we just don’t have enough windsurfing instructors coming out of sailing programs.
having many of the top windsurfers in the world in the 70s and 80s, sadly the culture was never integrated into sailing clubs, or our national organization, as it was in other countries. They get 300 kids, under age 17, at the Techno 293 Worlds.īut despite the U.S. And in many many countries, youth windsurfing remains HUGE. Youth windsurfing has all the same attractions as the O’pen BIC, arguably more. While the O’pen BIC is expanding in the USA, windsurfing is another popular alternative in Europe but it has not seen the same success in the USA. In Part One he described how the O’pen BIC is proving to be a popular alternative to prams, while in Part Two below he discusses additional ways to expand the youth sailing ‘kiddie menu’: Sayre is now hyper-active in creating awareness of the issues, sharing his thoughts in an interview with Scuttlebutt editor Craig Leweck. National Windsurfing Champion and four time college sailing All-American, has become acutely aware of what’s hampering youth sailing in the USA.