Joe Cooper, WindCheck’s intrepid Contributing Editor, muses on everything from exploring the waters of his native Australia as a young’un to his time as an America’s Cup crewman…and especially his passion for getting young people out sailing.
I responded to the Bat Signal from Sail Newport that Team SCA, the all-women team entered in this year’s Volvo Ocean Race, was approaching Newport on their first transatlantic training sail and we ought to go out to Brenton Point State Park to cheer them in.
Charlie Enright has managed to pull off a lifetime dream in seven years sailing in the Volvo Ocean Race as skipper of the only real live U.S.-crewed boat in the VOR.
In late July of 1999, I had what some might call the good fortune to be among the few in the world who have seen Pitcairn in the flesh. I was accompanying the yacht I was the master of, on a steamer, sailing from New Zealand to the U.S. and we passed by within the proverbial biscuit toss of this infamous island.
Tiverton is the kind of place you have to go to, to get to. It is in Rhode Island, it’s on the water, the local high school has boat building and electronics classes, and there’s a good junior sailing program at Tiverton Yacht Club.
I’ve come full circle. I started out as a small kid, a “tot” as my Dad often referred to me, on a sandy beach with small boats. Now I am instructing small kids in small boats on a sandy beach.
When one thinks of a “teacher” one thinks, if one considers it at all, of a one-way flow of information, a “download” in today’s parlance. As anyone who has taught anything for more than ten seconds knows, that is not true.
In the Northeast most sailors, racing or otherwise,
are at least aware of Block Island Race Week. This year’s
edition, was the 25th running of this famous
week-long party coupled with great racing to
fill in the daylight hours.
Next time you’re out sailing with your kids, think back to basics and try to connect some of the disciplines you know about, perhaps without even realizing it, to sailing and to what the kids are up to at school.
Sailing is fun, and having a great tale to tell of how fast you were or what boats you sailed past is also great fun. Fun is valuable. It makes us enjoy life, so hours spent sailing must be fun or they do not provide “value.”
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