Sail1Design is elated to announce that McLaughlin is now our exclusive sponsor of this award! Please keep reading about this exciting development, and what the winner of this award will receive!
Optimist sailing, for so many, is where it all starts. In fact, there may be no healthier one-design class in North America than the US Optimist Class. Sail1Design is proud to salute this boat, the people involved in the class, but most importantly, the kids who get out there and sail in this great little boat. This is the Lone Wolf in training, the next great singlehanded sailor! Last year’s Optimist Sailor of the Year, Luke Arnone, was a great choice. Who will it be this year? It’s up to you!
This award, announced each January, goes to the Optimist sailor, who in the evaluation of our judge panel (from nominated sailors), had the best overall sailing year, for the preceding calendar year.
HOW TO NOMINATE
This is YOUR award! We require written submissions of nomination; in fact we only choose from nominated sailors, and do not suggest nor solicit specific nominations. If you’d like to nominate an Optimist sailor, please write a 200 word minimum letter, with regatta results, to [email protected]. Please make sure we receive this letter before 31 DECEMBER 2016.
WHAT YOU WIN!
Thanks to McLaughlin, the winner will get 3 great awards in addition to the honor of winning:
1. A beautiful, framed & engraved 
painting to keep forever.
2. What’s more, and in keeping with the philosophy of both Sail1Design & McLaughlin, the winner will have the opportunity to give “the gift of giving”, or give back to sailing, and choose, on his or her own, an “up-and-coming” Optimist sailor to receive a FREE charter of a McLaughlin Optimist at a major US Optimist event on McLaughlin’s schedule! Sail1Design will help work out details of when and where this great gift is made.
3. Finally, the winner will ALSO receive his or her own free charter as well!
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| Eventually, California Snipe sailor and veteran boat builder Mike McLaughlin, who had worked at Chubasco most of his life, purchased the Snipe molds and moved the operation to Tennessee in response to the relocation of the International Snipe Headquarters to Chattanooga. Mike McLaughlin further expanded the company’s success and helped distribute the McLaughlin Snipe on a worldwide spectrum. Steve Sherman, Indiana lake sailor, and father of three boys (two of whom presently work at McLaughlin) purchased the company from Mike McLaughlin in ‘86. Thus began the materialization of his life long dream of contributing to the sport of sailing and in particular the Snipe class.  Steve Sherman, owner and head engineer from McLaughlin Boat Works, working with Luis Horta, IODA Chief Measurer. |
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| Steve’s commitment to innovation and continual improvement combined with his natural curiosity and “hands on” approach led the company to successes in many classes. At one time the company built the Lightning, Day Sailor, Windmill, Highlander, Thistle and Tanzer 16. MBW has always taken pride in pushing the forefront of foam/composite technology, such as being one of the first, outside of the aerospace industry, to use a vacuum bag in performance sail craft back in the early 1980’s. That history of innovation and continual improvement are evident today in our new dust and climate controlled production facility | |
| Beginning in 1990, at the request of families from the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, Mclaughlin began a new tradition building its first International Optimist Dinghy. Today, Mclaughlin specializes in the Optimist and has become one of the leading manufacturers in the World. As Steve Sherman puts it, “the Optimist is the single most important element in keeping sailing alive and healthy in the world today. From the tens of thousands of children that learn to sail each year around the world will come the sailors, Olympians, instructors, coaches and commodores of tomorrow’s society. My dream of contributing to sailing has come true by a hundred fold.”
Holding true to the original ideas of Elms and Shear, MBW continues as a business run by sailors for the benefit of sailors. You cannot build a successful company without good people. MBW has assembled a group of like-minded sailors who believe that if you provide the finest in customer service and the best product money can buy the rest will take care of its self. This is why MBW is the premiere partner with the United States Optimist Dinghy class organization (USODA) and supporter of the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA). |
Of course the best situation your club could be in is that the junior sailing director, head instructor or whoever runs the day-to-day operation of the sailing program, has done well and has agreed to come back for summer 2017.
When you start sending offers to potential returning staff members it is important to give them a deadline for when they need to decide if they want to return or not for the following summer. I recommend giving them four to six weeks to decide before you open up the position for new candidates. The four to six weeks shows your loyalty for current staff and is a sign of respect. If after the decision period is over, it is time to start sending offers to other candidates for the position. New staff candidates should be interviewed to see if they fit the program needs. They should be made offers and given the same timeline for making a decision.
Before we step into the racing rules section, we have the basic principles of sailing. The first one is titled Sportsmanship and the Rules, and states, “Competitors in the sport of sailing are governed by a body of rules that they are expected to follow and enforce. A fundamental principle of sportsmanship is that when competitors break a rule they will promptly take a penalty, which may be to retire.” Right here you see how important it is to teach these to your sailors. I personally don’t think coaches spend enough time teaching these, and I think one reason is they don’t know where to start. So today you are going to learn the best ways to teach the rules and sportsmanship to your young sailors. After all it’s one of the basic principles of sailing!
can understand the different situations better. Teaching the rules can be done not only inside, but outdoors and on the water. Some of the way you can teach the rules indoors is; a chalk talk on a specific rule, playing out situations with magnetic boats and marks, watching videos of situations, mock protest hearings, and quizzes. How you can teach the rules outdoors is; use actual boats on land to set up situations, and set up situations with real marks, starting lines, and making the sailors act as the boats. Teaching the rules on the water can be done with many different drills some are; short starting line, box drill, favored end of the line, and small course drills.
It is so important to teach your sailors the rules and sportsmanship. This is no easy task as they can be both difficult to teach and difficult for your group to understand. However, we need to recognize their importance, and make sure we are spending time teaching them to our sailors in a way they will understand. The rules and sportsmanship are the foundation of sailing, and with us being the umpires out on the water it makes it one of the most unique parts of sailing. When teaching the rules we need to make sure we make it age and ability appropriate, use the indoors, outdoors, and the water to teach, and finally, make it fun! Sportsmanship is a tough one to teach young sailors, but by making it interactive with team building activities and talking about what makes a good sport we can accomplish the goal. Coaching is a great job, but no easy task by using these tips you are sure to have an easier and FUN job of teaching the rules and sportsmanship to your sailors.