School Syllabus Sailing

Sailing is a sport that lends itself to educational development. Contentiously it is one of a very few sports which can claim to develop this list:

• Physics: Levers on the boat for the sail to work efficiently; hydrodynamics; aerodynamics; Newtons Laws
• Data processing: Tides, setup
• Mathematics: Geometry: the angles required to sail in order to make the best progress to a point; The geometry of the rig
• Meteorology: A huge area of learning with multiple educational applications
• Management of Change: Dealing with changing angles of the wind; dealing with sea changes, changes in positions of other boats
• Crisis Management: Yes, in most sports this is a feature. In the complex sport of sailing it applies a lot more
• Environmental issues: Self explanatory. We do not sail in a purpose built arena!

With the above in mind, and much more, we can make appealing presentations to educational establishments.
If we look internationally, we see that Singapore, New Zealand, Netherlands, Israel and France are all big into sailing and windsurfing for schools. All these nations are strongly represented at international levels. For sure it happens in other countries, but we at Toplevel Sailing believe we should attack the school market with a missionary zeal based both on the quantifiable benefits to the school and children, but also to make certain that our sport rises to a mainstream position.
How do we promote to schools? Obviously a simple PowerPoint and handouts are essential, featuring all the benefits, but we are actually “selling” to two different markets. We have the educational benefits of sailing as described above, but then we also have the participants – the children themselves. They are hardly likely to be thrilled at the prospect of more education, but this is where sailing is a rare sport. We can produce a credible and truthful educational promotion, and at the same time we can produce an athletic and adrenaline provoking presentation or video for the children. Both are true, and for this reason sailing is uniquely marketable, and we as a sport simply don’t take advantage of it.
The thought of making sailing and windsurfing accessible to millions of school kids across the globe fires us at Toplevel Sailing with enthusiasm. If you want to discuss school presentations with our performance directors, send us an email.