A topic CB32863 titled "how to grow a sport' caught my attention and made me think of a event I'd long forgotten, which involved Shoreline YC in Long Beach, Ca
Shoreline YC present location was just a dream at that time. Myself and the future commodore Tom Heron (Tom wrote the intro in my book THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE) were good friends and his boat was docked across from mine.
Together we wanted to get more folks interested in the sport of sailing and we were constantly thinking of ways to do so. We wanted to expand the club, which at that time was located on a second floor above a restaurant;
One day Tom suggested we provide boats and contact some inner city schools in Long Beach to see if there would be any interest in their students learning to sail. My first thought was what an interesting idea but felt it will never work. My idea was not going to be just a boat ride in Long Beach harbor - these kids (if any were interested) were going to actually sail the boat. We developed a sail trim lesson plan. The students would have to attend 4 one hour lessons after school. We then contacted a couple of schools. Unfortunately, I can't remember the school names. The school principles liked the idea. On the day of the first class I had misgivings and thought we'd be lucky to see 5 kids - over 40 boys and girls showed up - we needed more boats!! I've conducted a number of sail trim seminars from Ventura to San Diego and never was I more challenged about the concepts of sail trim then with these kids. Usually I can skate through these seminars as I've heard just about every sail trim question a sailor could ask but this day was a struggle - these kids forced me to be at the top of my game. It was unbelievable how fast they picked up on the concepts. They forced me to pick up the pace and turned out we only needed 3 lessons - they were into it and the lessons always went beyond one hour because they didn't want to leave.
Then came the sailing day, which turned up to be perfect and unusual for long Beach - about 5 knots of wind. These kids handled the boats like they've been sailing for years. They worked together and operated as a team.
I don't know how many of them every got into sailing after graduation. That wasn't important to me. What was important was that they learned a new sport and applied subjects they learned in schools to what they were doing. Turned out later the school principles pull a fast one on us - most of these inner city boys and girls were in gifted student programs (what they called it in those days). I'm sure they felt the old guy teaching sure is slow!! I had the feeling these kids were thinking way ahead of me.
It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Shoreline YC present location was just a dream at that time. Myself and the future commodore Tom Heron (Tom wrote the intro in my book THE SAIL TRIM USERS GUIDE) were good friends and his boat was docked across from mine.
Together we wanted to get more folks interested in the sport of sailing and we were constantly thinking of ways to do so. We wanted to expand the club, which at that time was located on a second floor above a restaurant;
One day Tom suggested we provide boats and contact some inner city schools in Long Beach to see if there would be any interest in their students learning to sail. My first thought was what an interesting idea but felt it will never work. My idea was not going to be just a boat ride in Long Beach harbor - these kids (if any were interested) were going to actually sail the boat. We developed a sail trim lesson plan. The students would have to attend 4 one hour lessons after school. We then contacted a couple of schools. Unfortunately, I can't remember the school names. The school principles liked the idea. On the day of the first class I had misgivings and thought we'd be lucky to see 5 kids - over 40 boys and girls showed up - we needed more boats!! I've conducted a number of sail trim seminars from Ventura to San Diego and never was I more challenged about the concepts of sail trim then with these kids. Usually I can skate through these seminars as I've heard just about every sail trim question a sailor could ask but this day was a struggle - these kids forced me to be at the top of my game. It was unbelievable how fast they picked up on the concepts. They forced me to pick up the pace and turned out we only needed 3 lessons - they were into it and the lessons always went beyond one hour because they didn't want to leave.
Then came the sailing day, which turned up to be perfect and unusual for long Beach - about 5 knots of wind. These kids handled the boats like they've been sailing for years. They worked together and operated as a team.
I don't know how many of them every got into sailing after graduation. That wasn't important to me. What was important was that they learned a new sport and applied subjects they learned in schools to what they were doing. Turned out later the school principles pull a fast one on us - most of these inner city boys and girls were in gifted student programs (what they called it in those days). I'm sure they felt the old guy teaching sure is slow!! I had the feeling these kids were thinking way ahead of me.
It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
