Sailors Learn to Stay Safe on Big Boats at Annual Safety at Sea Seminar
With Junior Race Week over, Junior Sailor’s attentions were on another event happening two days later. The annual Junior Safety at Sea seminar, hosted by the Storm Trysail Foundation.
The seminar is a day-long safety skills workshop that incorporates mini classes in the morning with a practical component on large yachts in the afternoon, where about 200 junior sailors practiced the skills they learned in the morning.
The morning started off with a presentation by Boris Hermann from Hamburg, Germany- navigator of “Maserati”, the upgraded Volvo 70 that is now breaking world sailing records. He told the junior sailors of his sailing journey from Manhattan to San Francisco, how he kept safe on the trip and how the feat was accomplished.
After the initial briefing, the junior sailors split up into four different groups – three of the groups went to classes, while the other group (The newly introduced “Level 200” advanced program for 28 junior sailors) took to the water immediately.
On land, sailors got to experience three different workshops, concerning working as a crew on a big boat, survival at sea, and how to recover a man overboard.
Down on the docks, Peter Bauer, Ann Myer, Rudi Millard, Bob Behringer worked with junior sailors to rig a boat, and talked about the importance of doing your role out on the water.
Inside the junior clubhouse, Adam Loory told the sailors about what to do in a man overboard situation, which was practiced later that day.
And inside the main building of LYC, sailors were taught about survival when out on big boats.
“I really found the survival at sea class (taught by H.L. DeVore & Gino Bottino) really interesting. They told us about how to stay in contact when sailing, and how to use what you have as remedies. It’s definitely something that I’ll use out on the water,” junior sailor Wynn Simmons told me.
After the morning, sailors headed out in 22 boats to race. Upon return, a pizza party was thrown. “I know I’ll be coming back next year,” Hector McKemy told me.
