Olcott Yacht Club

Youth Boating & Sailing Program

The Olcott Yacht Club’s Junior Sailing program is a summer sailing camp which began in the mid 1940’s and today is still an important part of the Club and community.  Over the years we have served many families and children as they enjoyed learning to sail and taking with them lifetime skills and friendships.  Our program provides general sailing instruction for both boys and girls ages 7 to 18, non-members and members alike.  Our training is done in both Optimist dinghies and Club 420s providing an ample fleet of boats for both beginner sailors and returning veterans.  We also train in a fleet of kayaks, providing additional water instruction on days when the lake is too rough to sail.  Our advanced racers are known around the lake to be great competitors and true sportsmen.

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Several levels of instruction are taught with an emphasis on safety, fun, sportsmanship, cooperation and competition.  The curriculum follows the US Sailing Association format and our instructional staff (many of whom went through the program themselves) are all US Sailing and American Red Cross certified.   Classes are kept small with a student/teacher ratio of less than 10:1 and acceptance into the program is on a first come/first serve basis.

We continue to do our best to provide an instructional experience that is reasonable in cost to each family.  In order to be able to provide & maintain all of our boats & equipment used, beyond the income from camp tuition, we rely on generous financial support and fundraising from The Olcott Mantel Club, our past commodores organization which is a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization.  Through their annual fundraiser and tax-deductible donations we continue to keep our program a success.