Meet the Youth Sailing Exchange, 2014

Bridging culture through the mutual love of sailing, the goal of the Youth Sailing Exchange (YSE) is for young competitive sailors to experience, first hand, life abroad. By living with a host family, learning a new language, training with a local team and racing at local and national regattas, sailors will gain new international friendships as well as understandings.  Since it started last year, this summer’s exchange will truly embody the program’s intended meaning, as it will see American and Spanish sailors traveling to and from each other’s countries.
For the first half of the summer, two Annapolis based Optimist sailors will travel to Catalonia, Spain to train and race with the Optimist race team from Club Náutico El Balís (21 miles from Barcelona) under international coach Magda Resano. There, they have an exciting July planned with one week of training, a few weekend regattas at nearby clubs and a trip to France where they will compete in the Atlantic Watersport Games, the International French Championship, in Pays de la Loire, France. In addition to sailing, during their free time, sailors will enjoy sightseeing in Barcelona and experience daily life as a Catalan, truly a unique region of Spain.
At the end of July, six Catalan sailors will join their friends traveling to the U.S. and join the American sailors on their home waters in Annapolis, Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. They will train at Annapolis Yacht Club under Head Optimist coach and volunteer YSE program coordinator Tomás Ruiz de Luque, as well as coached by renowned Optimist coach Juan Carlos Romero. To round out the summer of practicing and racing in local events, sailors will travel to Newport, RI in early August to compete in the Optimist New England Championship.
With an incredible itinerary lined up, it is hard not to wish you could be a junior Opti sailor again. What will hopefully be an unforgettable summer is not with out the generosity of many supporters such as AYC and CN El Balís for providing boats and equipment free of charge, host families who have opened up their homes, and the immense efforts of organizers and coaches. This support is evidence of a shared belief in what this program can offer our sailors.

The YSE originally got its name from the obvious fact that it was meant to provide an opportunity for sailors to participate in an exchange program of the traditional sense. However, the program is also an exchange of community, family, and teams, which sailors will not get just doing international regattas. In addition to personal-growth, such as developing independence, responsibility and maturity, young sailors will have the chance to see that people are not all so different from each other. Undoubtedly sailors will gain a more open-minded perspective, cultural understanding, and greater curiosity. Instilling this at a young age can help avoid developing misconceptions of others altogether. In this way we can strive to use our sport as just one way to help make this world a better place.
The YSE is looking to expand to other clubs around the U.S. and internationally to include sailing programs in all types of international youth one design boats for sailors of all ages. The only prerequisite to participate is to be willing to embody everything the YSE wants to achieve.
If this sounds like something you or your home club would be interested in, please don’t hesitate to visit the website: www.youthsailingexchange.com, Facebook page: www.facebook.com/sailingexchange or email us at youthsailingexchange@gmail.com
While the mission of the YSE will never change, our hope is to see the program continue to grow and expand so that we reach a much wider audience and make this an opportunity for junior sailors all over the world.

Look for more news at the end of the summer as the YSE wraps up!