Dan Hearn Proposal - Grow through youth involvement
DN 805:
Reality check!
It seems to me that the initiative to put Ice Optimists under junior sailors needs to be at the local level where there can be one-on-one contact between the sponsoring enthusiasts, in the form of an individual or a club, and targeted families with junior sailors. Acquiring the boats by building or buying them is the easy part. Nurturing the use of those boats is the challenge. The sponsoring enthusiasts need to be willing to take the time to help the juniors learn how to safely sail the boats. The sponsors must be willing to take time away from their own sailing to devote time to junior training.
Think about how youngsters learn to sail in the summer. They go to sailing class at a local yacht club or community sailing center and spend several days a week on the water. During the ice sailing season the youngsters are in school during the week and we don't have ice sailing instructors and ice sailing schools.
Before we get excited about making boats available, we should be learning how the European enthusiasts have been organizing ice sailing instruction for youngsters. In my experience it seems that when a boat (winter or summer) is made available to be used without the users investment of time or money that the user most frequently makes no commitment to use the boat. And because with an ice boat the young sailor's parents would likely need to transport the boat to the ice site, the nurturing of parental commitment will be essential.
If there is to be financial support from the DN Class organization. I think that rather than the money going to the building of boats that the money should be used to promote via website, to develop the training programs, establishing a instructional materials and sponsoring events ranging from seminars for parents to on-the-ice events for the young sailors.
Families readily spend $2500.00 to buy a youngster a new entry level summer sailing Optimist. The child takes the Optimist to the local club where there is an instructional program.
The instructional program is where the DN class organization should focus it's efforts.
...Jane Pegel
us5285:
Count me in on the "If you buld it they will come" side. I built an ice-opti lat year and my daughter sailed it this year and both will be at the new ice-opti championships Dan Hearn is organizing for next year.
The kids like iceboating but what they really like ,just like in the summer, is to sail with people their own age.Sailing around with dad is o.k. but sailing with friends and new friends is what keeps them interested and comning back for more.
The more boats that are kid and beginner friendly the better.I think the ice-optis will not only good to get kids into iceboats but also to get beginner adults into the sport.
I'll let anyone who wants to sail my DN try it. But a lot of new sailors seem imtimidated by the uncofterable sailing position, the lack of visibility, and the speed of the modern DN.OYu almost have to beg even some good sailors to try your boat. Ice-optis, similar to skimmers don't look to imtimidating they're small, "cute",you sit straight up, you can see well at all times, and they are very controlable. Yet still give you that thrill that only an iceboat can give you.
I guess I'm trying to say that I don't think having abunch of begining boats around the country willdo anything but help the sport.
At worst we will have spent money giving people and kids the oppurtunty to become involved and perpetuate the sport we love. Is there any other better use of our money than helping grow our great sport. I for one can not think of one.
As per Janes comments whom I greatly respect. My kids sail out of North Cape Yacht Club in the summer. A club that has done well over the years producing very good junior sailors ,recently Anna Tunnacliff among others. The boats they sail are provided by someone other than themselves. In this case the club. Attending the junior sailing meetings I can confindently say that if you just talked about sailing and what we should do in "classroom" situations, we would have very little interest in the second best activity on water,"soft water sailing"
The reality check is that when you look around the pits at an iceboat regetta most of the American faces are old.
Chris US 5285
The glass is still half full.........................
DN 805:
Now you're getting closer to identifying the issues.
What sorts of issues are discussed at the North Cape meetings regarding the junior program? I imagine the issues are much like those discussed here at Lake Geneva: hiring qualified administrators and instructiors; maintaining equipment;
safety boats; budgets - in flow and out flow; event schedules; maintaining 501(c)3 status to attract donations; and, last but not least, liability insurance costs.
Acquiring the boats is the easy part.
Scott Brown:
Jane is spot on . . . as usual.
us5285:
You can tell from my article that I work on boats for a living and don't write for one. I guess I wasn't very clear. My point was that with most beginning junior sailors they DON'T CARE about the instructors, or the facility, or the quality of the organization they belong to. They like to SAIL and to hang around with their friends and goof off. They come to the boat club because the BOATS are there. The BOATS they have fun with. The BOATS they sail with the other kids on. My daughters and their friends judge the instructors and coaches by how much fun they have with them, not on their roll tack coaching technique. Granted as their skill level progresses they do start to pay more attention to those other things, but not at the beginning level. We are at the pre-beginning level in kids ice boating. There are no true entry level boats for kids to use. You can go to any sail club around and get a sail on a opti or F.J. or whatever. There are what ? 4 - 5 ice optis in the COUNTRY. You can have the best web site and sales pitch in the world, but with no boats to sail the kids will find other things to DO. Kids like to DO THINGS. I also thought aquiring the boats would be a fairly easy thing to do but I'm starting to be convinced that this might be the hardest thing to do.
Chris US5285
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