We asked two junior program coaches to describe how Skill Up enhances the effectiveness of sailing-skills instruction through its mobile app for instructors, coaches and students, and a web dashboard for program directors.

To learn how your own junior sailing program may benefit from Skill Up, join the Digital Instruction webinar on Oct 21 at 7 pm ET that will be hosted by John Pearce, US Sailing Youth Director; register in advance on Zoom.

Kevin Broome, sailing director at American Yacht Club in Rye NY, said. “Skill Up allows sailors, parents and coaches to be engaged on the same page. The transparent checklists in the app take some of the mystery out of what happens on the water. Everyone needs a few new ideas to shake up the learning process. Skill Up has resources that allow instructors to be more creative, try new drills and be more effective.

Henry Millette, head coach at Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich CT, commented, “The best way to keep sailors fully engaged during eight weeks of training sessions is to present them with a large variety of drills. It’s difficult to keep coming up with new activities each week that are well thought out, but if you don’t want them to get bored and restless, you’ve got to keep changing it up. I love being able to simply select a drill on Skill Up and show it to my sailors during a briefing, because the app displays the drill diagram better than I’d ever be able to do on a white board.

Henry provided these screen images from the Skill Up mobile app to illustrate the variety of high-quality drills available for teaching specific skills that are appropriate for a sailor’s skill-level.

Examples of useful drills

Example of a complex drill with an easy to understand image

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