Mainsail: Expanding Sailing Even During Pandemic

Feb 2, 2022

Heading out in Mainsail boats at Port Stanley

This week the Ontario Sailing Board of Directors committed to invest over $60,000 in the Mainsail Program for the coming 2022 season. The investment will include the purchase of eight new RS Zest boats and a new trailer thanks to the assistance in the purchase of Fogh Marine and RS Sailing.

Mainsail programming is set for the summer of 2022 with two locations. We are thrilled to not only welcome back Stormont Yacht Club as a valued member of Ontario Sailing, but also a host of Main Sail in July. In August we will move to the Thousand Islands Boat Museum in Gananoque Ontario to expand their amazing line up of offerings to the community.

Established in 2021, Mainsail is a new program replacing the popular Boom program, which Ontario Sailing delivered to communities across the province for 40 years. Through Mainsail, Ontario Sailing supplies equipment to a host club or organization and provides instructor training. Equipment is then offered for purchase to the club over a period of one to five years, so that the host site can quickly establish its own sailing school.

Port Stanley Sailing Squadron and Cedar Island Yacht Club hosted the first Mainsail programs in 2021, with the support of their dedicated volunteers and boards. These clubs will run their own sailing school programming in 2022 and will use equipment purchased from Ontario Sailing to offer additional learning opportunities for their communities.

“Cedar Island YC in Kingsville, Ontario was one of the first benefactors of the Ontario Sailing Mainsail Program.  In receiving our fleet of boats several years earlier than we anticipated we where able to advance our plans of our own Youth Learn to Sail program approximately four years!

“This had been a tremendous success for our club, our membership and the local youth who now have access to a great program,” explains Michael Lippmann, Youth Sail and Instructor Development, CIYC.

Ontario Sailing will continue to work with the 2021 hosts to support training, identifying instructor resources, answer questions and concerns with their own programming for this and any year in the future.

Young sailors at Cedar Island

The Mainsail program is an important tool for growing our sport in communities not currently running Learn to Sail Programs. It introduces sailing to young people across the province and helps them to develop new skills and a lifelong love of the sport.

For more information about the Mainsail program, contact Executive Director Glenn Lethbridge at execdir@ontariosailing.ca