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27 March 2007, 09:52 am

Canadian Sailors Train In Cayman

Cayman Islands Sailing Club News

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands Sailing Club (CISC) has arranged a youth sailing exchange programme with a club in Ontario, Canada. A team of four teenaged sailors from Toronto spent their spring break last week training on Byte CII sailboats at the Red Bay-based club and in return, CISC will send five young Byte sailors to train with the Toronto team and travel to the Fruit Bowl training regatta in Montreal at the end of July.

The conditions in the North Sound last week proved almost perfect for Byte sailing.

'We had 15-20 knot winds with warm temperatures and sunny skies,' said Mike WEBER, CISC's Sailing Director. 'This made for excellent training conditions and a great way for us to showcase our outstanding small boat sailing conditions. It is our hope that more teams will use our facilities in the future.'

Two Main Aims

The Cayman segment of the programme had two primary purposes: for the Canadians to use the CISC facility for off-season training; and for the Canadians to give Cayman's sailors competition.

These aims will be reciprocated when CISC dispatches its team to Canada in the summer.

'This exchange programme is a great way to help Cayman, a developing sailing country,

improve the skills of our sailors,' said Mr Weber. 'One of the obstacles to improvement is a lack of sailors for our children to sail against. You need to sail against someone better to improve.'

The young Byte sailors enjoy the
Caribbean conditions
© Cayman Islands Sailing Club

Another obstacle to improvement is the cost of travel, he said. 'The exchange is a way for Cayman to give the Canadian sailors an inexpensive Caribbean sailing vacation in return for them cutting the CISC team's costs when they travel north for regattas in the summer,' he added.

Fifth Year

The sailing exchange concept was developed by WEBER in 2002, when a group of Canadians came to Cayman at Easter. The development of an exchange programme has become one of his goals as part of the revival of sailing in Cayman following Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

'The exchange is symbolic of how bigger countries can help smaller sailing nations develop sailing,' he continued.

The links between the two countries are already well developed. CISC already has Canada-trained instructors and coaches who work there full time and come down throughout the year during the club's busiest times, and is a dealership for PS2000, the Canadian builder of the Byte CII.

The club has also offered a Canadian instructor course and intends to run another one this year.

For further information about the CISC, including sponsorship opportunities and details on the youth sailing programme, either visit www.sailing.ky or contact Club Administrator Heather Bradley on 947 7913 or at admin@sailing.ky.