After-school sailing club registration open now

Contributed photo

The Sail­ing Foun­da­tion shares the lat­est news about their after-school sail­ing program.

The San Juan Island Sail­ing Foun­da­tion is again spon­sor­ing low-cost after-school sail­ing for mid­dle and high school stu­dents with any amount of sail­ing expe­ri­ence — from com­plete novice to expe­ri­enced rac­er. Younger stu­dents will be con­sid­ered based on their matu­ri­ty and their own pas­sion for sail­ing, as well as their size and weight. Inter­est­ed sailors should go ahead and reg­is­ter and the pro­gram lead­ers will be in touch.

The pro­gram takes places Tues­days and Thurs­days from 3:15–5:30 p.m. for all of Sep­tem­ber and Octo­ber, depend­ing on weath­er and tides, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly. It’s okay to start at a lat­er ses­sion, even for begin­ners. All class­es take place at the far end of the road at Jack­son Beach. Instruc­tion and prac­tice in sail­ing tech­niques and rac­ing will be pro­vid­ed. Boats used include RS Teras, Lasers, RS Fevas, and V15s.

Rac­ing is the best way for sailors to assess their sail­ing abil­i­ty. Inter­est­ed sailors will be coached to com­pete in the mul­ti­ple region­al regat­tas avail­able; par­tic­i­pa­tion in races is optional.

The cost is $100 per sea­son. Full aid is avail­able, gen­er­ous­ly pro­vid­ed by the SJI Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion and mul­ti­ple donors. Just ask.

Ide­al­ly, sailors bring their own gear, but the Sail­ing Foun­da­tion has plen­ty to lend out. Required gear includes:

• PFD (not the inflat­able kind)
• Wet suit
• Booties or water shoes
• Gloves
• Sun block
• Dry tow­el and dry clothes for afterwards

No cot­ton clothes can be worn dur­ing sailing.

Sail­ing takes place in Grif­fin Bay. Sailors should show up dressed for sail­ing — in wet suits — and get rig­ging as soon as they arrive, unless they are new to the program.

Weath­er and tides are impor­tant, and coach­es will text par­ents and sailors if there will be changes to the start times or if sail­ing will be can­celled. Some­times the weath­er will be too poor to sail, or the tides too low to launch, but sailors will still have a short­ened class with on-land lessons called chalk talks. There’s need to dress for sail­ing for chalk talks only.

All sailors must have a par­ent-signed waiv­er, pro­vid­ed once you reg­is­ter. All sailors must also take a swim test on the first day they attend prac­tice, which is sur­pris­ing­ly pop­u­lar with the kids. The swim test requires wear­ing a PFD, jump­ing off the dock, and swim­ming to shore. The Island Rec float test and swim team mem­ber­ship don’t waive this requirement.

If you have ques­tions, con­tact Susan West by email, and feel free to ask for a phone num­ber if you’d like to talk instead of write.

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