LITTLE CURRENT—A late breaking phone call to The Expositor on Monday morning confirmed some great news—the Little Current Yacht Club (LCYC) youth sailing program will run again this year, although in a bit of a truncated format. The program was on the brink of cancellation due to the loss of the sailing instructor to the electrical trades, but thanks to a collaboration with the Sudbury Yacht Club, the program will run through August.
LCYC Commodore Bruce O’Hare confirmed some of the details of the 11th hour reprieve for this year’s program. “Youth sailing is on!” he said.
“We were really concerned that the program would have to be cancelled this year,” conintued Mr. O’Hare, “but the Sudbury Yacht Club (SYC) really came through for us.”
The two yacht clubs will be sharing the services of a sailing instructor, developing the skills of a former Manitoulin Sea Cadet and providing the needed teaching experience that will enable the new instructor to get up and running quickly.
“He is very experienced already,” said Mr. O’Hare, noting that he not only participated in the Sea Cadet program, but spent time on the East Coast on a tall ship as well. The yacht clubs have sent the instructor off for the appropriate courses and the stint at SYC will provide valuable hands on experience when it comes to teaching the skills of sailing.
Under the arrangement with Sudbury, the new instructor will provide four weeks of instruction during the early summer at SYC before coming to the Island in August to provide four weeks of instruction here.
One week of that instruction will be for the Manitoulin Sea Cadet Corps, whose sailing program through the Department of Defence was cut this year. Thanks to an as yet anonymous benefactor, the Sea Cadets will be getting their sailing instruction through the LCYC youth sailing program.
“It was a gentleman who we met through the WD-40 for the Mind lecture series last summer,” said Mr. O’Hare. “He manages a family trust and wanted to help pay for instruction for a group on the Island.” The Manitoulin Sea Cadet Corps sprang immediately to mind.
The other three weeks of instruction will be open for other interested youth and their parents, noted the commodore.
“There will be fewer spots this year accordingly,” said Mr. O’Hare, “as we have four weeks instead of eight like last year.” The program will also not be mobile this year. “We will only be able to offer it in the Port of Little Current,” he confirmed.
Another change is that the program will run from Tuesday to Saturday, with half days on Tuesdays and Fridays. “The reason being that Bryce will come in from Sudbury for evaluations,” said Mr. O’Hare.
The LCYC is also currently looking to hire another person for the summer, a “rigger” who will assist the instructor and prepare the boats for the program. That person will also be sent for instructor training. “This way, by next year, we will be back up to two instructors,” he said.
Costs for the program will remain the same, although there will be far fewer spots. “There will be eight spots for two weeks and 12 spots for two weeks for 20 kids, total, total, so they will be filling up fast,” said Mr. O’Hare.
Further details on this year’s program are being uploaded to the LCYC website, www.lcyc.ca, over the next couple of days and should be complete by the time of publication of this story.