VERO BEACH — “The child builds the boat and the boat builds the child,” says Bill Price, chief instructor at the Youth Sailing Foundation of Indian River County. The 67-year-old Air Force veteran who flew transports back and forth to Vietnam in the early 1970s is talking about a unique feature of the sailing program headquartered just south of the Vero Beach Marina where children ages 7 to 15 have the opportunity to build the boats in which they learn to sail.
“Ninety-eight percent of youth sailing organizations around the country buy fiberglass boats and hand them over to the kids to learn in,” says Charles Price, who started the sailing program with a neighbor in April 2009. “We wanted to do it differently and decided to have them build their own boats.”
The boats are little eight-foot Optimist Club Racers, the same bathtub shaped dinghies kids learn to sail in from coast to coast. Kits cost $1,600 and the YSF provides a location to build them along with expert assistance. The locally-made kits take 40- plus hours to build and do not require power tools for assembly.
“A fiberglass boat costs $8,000 or $10,000,” says Price. “Our way is much cheaper and it is a bonding experience for a parent and child who work on the project together. You and your kid get to put the boat together and we have some guys down there who help do the work.”
The Vero Beach Yacht Club, the Moorings Yacht Club, the Vero Beach Power Squadron and other organizations have donated kits for children whose families cannot afford one.
Kids who don’t want to build a boat can sign up and learn how to sail for free, using one of the boats in the club’s small fleet.
The Youth Sailing Foundation is a nonprofit organization with a seven-member board of directors. It holds regular boat-building and sailing sessions from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. most Saturdays, with boat-building in the morning and sailing classes in the afternoon.
There are four U.S. Sailing certified instructors along with a number of assistants. About 20 kids show up on a typical Saturday morning, according to Price.
“There are three tenets of youth sailing,” he says. “We are going to learn something. We are going to have fun. And we are going to be safe.
“Before they go out on the water, the children have to demonstrate swimming ability and comfort in the water. After that we will take them out and do a capsize drill so they know how to right the boat if it tips over.
“They learn not to be on the dock or boat without a life jacket, to wear closed-toe shoes and to put on sunblock. We teach them the rules of the road on the water, who has the right-of-way.”
A mix of island and mainland kids participate, including a number of children from Youth Guidance who build boats and learn to sail with their mentors.
There are 39 children in the program at present. Approximately 25 percent of the students are girls.
“Sailing is a thinking person’s game,” says Pope. “Girls do very well.”
Besides the regular Saturday sessions, the YSF holds special events and participates in sailing competitions.
“Our kids have been in regattas in West Palm Beach, Jensen Beach and Fort Pierce and have won some first and second place awards,” say Price. “We had a successful month-long summer camp at the Moorings Yacht Club last summer. There were four one-week sessions and we averaged about 10 kids per session.
“We started the first day with the swimming test and some DVDs and then got out on the water. By the end of the week we were able to hold little mini-regattas where they sailed around some buoys.”
Price and Pope say sailing is good for kids in all kinds of ways.
“It is a real self-confidence builder,” Pope says. “If you are a good parent, you tell your child when to go bed and when to get up and what time to have dinner. They don’t make those decisions. But when they are out in that boat – for the first time in their life, they are the captain.”
“They are on their own once they get out on the water,” says Diane Lanier, whose sons Noah, 13, and Cody, 11, are part of the YSF. “They have instructors helping them of course, but they are also independently making their own decision, reading the wind and deciding how to handle the boat.
“I think it is very good for them to make those kinds of independent decisions and they like it a lot. They have done a few regattas and they really enjoy the instructors and camaraderie with the other kids.”
That sense of independence and mastery is enhanced by the boat-building program, according to Price.
“To know they are out there on the water sailing a boat they built means a lot to them.”
Sailing also benefits children by getting them out into nature.
“Exposure to the natural world is definitely good for them,” says Lanier. “Especially here in Vero where it is so beautiful with the dolphins and manatees and birds in the mangroves.”
“You ought to see them where we launch,” says Price. “It is hard to keep them focused on getting the boats in the water because they are so fascinated with the fish and frogs and dolphins.
“We were going out one day and this kid’s boats stopped and lifted up and his eyes got real big. He had run up on top of a manatee. The boat doesn’t have any sharp edges so it didn’t hurt the manatee but it was quite an experience for him.”
“I hope the sailing bug will stick with Noah and Cody their entire lives,” says Lanier.
“All the really good sailors started when they were little kids,” says Price. “I thought I was pretty good when I moved to Annapolis a while back with my 24- foot boat, but then I realized I wasn’t going to win many races against these hotshots who had been sailing since they were five years old.
“If you run 500 kids through a program like this and end up reading about just one of them who is crewing in an America’s Cup race or doing something else like that in high-level sailing, you have won.”
The Youth Sailing Foundation is raising money to expand its program and make it more progressive.
It recently received a $7,500 matching grant from the Heisman Group. With that money and $9,200 raised locally the organization bought two 420 Club Racers, larger boats that will enable instructors to teach intermediate as well as beginning sailing.
“Fundraising is ongoing,” says Pope.
