Seeking to Satisfy Sailing Aspiration?

The Spring Sailing Season is wrapping up and summer is blowing in. Many may be looking for teams to join as they enter High School or ways to enhance their 2022 summer experience. Well, right in Dye’s Inlet is the Central Kitsap Sailing team.

Another Central Kitsap High School (CKHS) opportunity is the Sailing Club. According to Dr. John Bouck, Advisor to the Sailing Club and heavily associated with the sailing team, these two entities are separate, but both great activities to get involved in. The club meets to discuss sailing and hone on-land skills such as knot tying, while the team flies under the banner of the district but is only associated with the port of Silverdale and a separate, non-profit organization, the Kitsap Sailing Foundation. 

There are many motives to join the Sailing team, says CKHS Junior Jeffrey Scholfield, “For those of you considering to be members, it’s really a great experience. You get to bond and get in a very close relationship with a group of students. You also get some traveling opportunities…Sometimes we traveled to places like the San Juan Islands and Bellingham and it’s just a really great experience to see some great opportunities.”

Some Historical Knowledge About the Sailing Team from Kitsapsail.org

Kitsap Sailing Foundation is based at the Port of Silverdale on beautiful Dyes Inlet. Kitsap Sailing  offers a variety of programs, including summer sailing camps for kids and teens. No prior experience is needed.  

New or experienced sailors in the Central Kitsap Area and from areas of Kitsap without a local sailing team are invited to join the High School Sailing Team with Fall and Spring sessions. Sailing team is a great program for Running Start students, and for home school or private school students as well. Our goal is to help provide near year-round sailing activities for middle and high school students to learn to sail and improve their sailing and leadership skills. Students compete in NW Interscholastic Sailing Association regattas but are not sponsored by CK school district.

Jeffrey is a current member of the Sailing team, “So I have four years of experience. I started sailing as an eighth grader. So I did sailing camps. And then I joined the team afterwards in eighth grade, and I’ve fallen in love with sailing ever since,” he said.

Opportunities start now, and those who are interested have various options to choose from this summer.

“We have a series of summer camps that are coming up. So youth or teenagers that are interested in learning how to sail can spend the morning or afternoon with us for a week and we help them learn how to sail and get comfortable on a sailboat. We also have a community and open sailing. So there is an opportunity that if somebody can demonstrate that they know enough about sailing that we’re happy to help them get on the water in the evenings. And so we’ll be running that during the summertime,” said Bouck.

But for those busy this summer, there is no need to despair.

The next season starts in the fall, and is a great option for less experienced sailors because the weather is generally much better, says Bouck.

You can register on kitsapsailing.org, for both summer programs and the fall season.

The sport itself is characterized by regattas and practices. 

“We have sailing Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So practice is three times a week. And it’s just a really great experience,” says Scholfeild

Bouck explains the various events found at a regatta, he said, “So one is a fleet race where just everybody tries to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. And the other is Team Racing. We have three boats from one group, race against three boats from another group. And you’re allowed to use the right of way rules and force people into awkward positions and try to take advantage of the wind and things like that, too. So it’s a very, very dynamic and fun thing to do.”

Finally, Bouck said, “I encourage the people to give it a try. That and we recognize that sailing can appear as sort of a privileged sport and we’re trying to do our best to provide scholarships and support so that people that have historically not been able to participate, that they can and we hope that we can have a broader spectrum of people involved.”