I Think He's Hooked!

[clausont]

This last weekend I had the opportunity to take my 16 year old nephew out for a very short sail in both our 10' Catboat ( our tender) and our Ingrid 38.
The weather was just perfect although the wind was extremely light. We had no sooner raised all the sail that we have (no spinnaker or anything like that) before we had to turn back for the marina. We had made about four miles outside the bar. The water was about as flat as it gets on the Oregon coast - maybe two foot swells and one foot wind waves. The sun was shining and by 09:00 it felt like it was 75F. The only thing that we could have asked for was more wind
Well, my nephew has never been on a boat out in the ocean before and never sailed at all. He said he did feel a bit seasick and was soon down below laying down. I felt a bit bad about that on an introduction to sailing like that. The bright side was that all five of our kids (three to twelve years old) had a blast and were very sorry when we had to turn back. They were so much looking forward to seeing some whales and dolphins. (they did get to see one dolphin).
After returning to the marina my nephew felt a bit better (he was not the reason we returned) and I asked him what he thought of sailing. He said that he enjoyed it and hoped to do it again only for longer. We talked and he would like to find a sailing school in the East bay as close to his home as possible (he lives in Livermore, CA and does not drive yet).
If anyone can give us some suggestions for a sailing school (small sailboats like an Opti or something might work well) we would really appreciate it.

[David M]

Lake Merritt through the City of Oakland has sailing lessons. Many of the local yacht clubs in the East Bay have junior sailing programs. Most of these are open to the public. Cal Sailing Club I think has some smaller boats now. I know they have windsurfers. Is there anything on Del Valle reservoir?

[clausont]

Thanks David - I will check these out.

[imagine2frolic]

BART will drop him off 2 blocks away. When Frolic was in Mexico I use to go down to Lake Merrit to get my sailing fix........i2f

[clausont]

Thanks I2F - we are looking at Lake Merritt and Cal Sailing Club in Berkeley right now.
David, I only saw paddle boats, kayaks and canoes advertised at Del Valle. The Cal Sailing Club looks promising though. My nephew is most interested in CSC after looking at these mentioned so far. Their membership is very reasonable too.
Thanks all.

[Ashoreschool]

Hopefully you have started something your nephew will love for the rest of his life. There are lots of sailing schools for teens, and several in the bay area. I believe Cal Sailing Club (Berkeley), and the City of Oakland (Lake Merritt Boating Center) both offer summer boating camps for youth, and pretty sure there are several more. You may want to go to the ASA and US Sailing websites for additional schools. Good luck.

[clausont]

Thanks for the information here. I am not sure yet what is happening in that department.
Please let me know if you do not get an email that I sent you.
Thanks!