wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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 Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 6:14 pm Post subject: Schools for learning how to sail |
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http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2922630
Read the entire article at the above link. There is a great deal of information at the link.
Set sail for a summer at sea
Sailing schools around the country have classes for people of all ages
July 03, 2010
On the afternoon of May 22, a young boy was sailing leisurely through Mulgun Port, in Namhae County, South Gyeongsang, on a dinghy yacht. The boy, who was also the skipper, is Han Jeong-hun, a first-year student at Mulgun Middle School.
Sailing has become part of Han�s daily routine since the town hall became a sailing school last year. Since then, Han�s weekends have been spent at sea and after school the sailing school is the first place he goes.
Now, Han is known in his neighborhood as the �Marine Boy.� He has become so good at sailing that he even sails in difficult waters with ease, without outside help.
He says that his dream is to sail around the world, even if his father, a fisherman, would still rather see him on a fishing boat than on a yacht.
Mulgun-ri is an old village known for anchovy fishing. A generation ago, the boys in the village imagined they would have careers as fisherman, like their fathers and grandfathers before them. The boys living here now, however, are more likely to dream about growing up to be the captain of their own yacht.
This change was largely brought about by the establishment of the Namhae Sailing School. In fact, all 30 students at Mulgun Middle School are now registered at the sailing school.
Lee Joon, 40, a research professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, is also a dedicated sailing student and attends classes at Namhae Sailing School every weekend. Lee entered the world of yachting 14 years ago while he was in college in the port city of Busan. Since he started attending classes at Namhae, he has mastered the art of sailing both a dinghy and a cruising yacht.
Now, he has set his sights on one day entering the Transatlantic Yacht Race, in which participants sail across the Atlantic on a 6.5-meter-long (21-foot) dinghy called a Mini 6.50, traveling a total of 4,500 kilometers (2,796 miles). The race, which takes the competitors from France through the Canary Islands to Brazil, is a physical, technical and mental test for the participants, who spend the entire two-month period by themselves at sea.
To enter the race, Lee will first need to buy a Mini 6.50, which he estimates will cost about 50 million won ($42,000). That is quite a burden considering his annual salary, but he is too excited to be concerned.
�Since this is my dream, I plan to save my money as well as hone my sailing skills in the coming years - even if I have to wait until I am a gray-haired old man.�
Han and Lee are just two of a new generation of sailing enthusiasts in Korea, where sailing was once considered to be an activity for a privileged few.
But events such as last month�s Korea Match Cup 2010 have ignited the sailing industry. The cup is an international race that is part of the World Match Racing Tour. The Korean leg of the race was held at Jeongok Marina in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi.
Claire Leroy, who participated in the Busan Cup International Women�s World Match Race two years ago and currently ranks first in the world, once said that sailing comes as natural to her as walking, because she grew up in a seaside village with her grandfather and father, both of whom were master mariners. She said in an interview two years ago that she sails around the world two to three months a year.
Last year, this reporter visited Hayama Marina, located in the eastern part of Yokohama, Japan, where that country�s first yacht club was established in 1964.
�Yachting is not just for the rich,� club president Tanaka Koichiro, 60 said. �Our club is always bustling with children every weekend, and I believe that a yacht club should be like a playground for kids living on the coast. And yachting doesn�t necessarily require one to buy a boat.� |
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