Small Boats and Young People

Ruminations on the importance of small craft for young people and opportunities to grow our community

Article by Sean Grealish

Teenagers in Small Boats
My own start in small boats was a tumultuous one. An optimist dinghy may look quaint to me in my 20’s, but to an eight-year-old Sean, my sailing instructor might as well have been asking me to jump off a cliff. Sail alone in that thing? By myself? What if something bad happens? Eventually I was convinced, after all, how intimidating could it possibly be to spend a sunny afternoon on the Willamette river—might even be fun. Sure enough though, as the building late afternoon breeze swung past the muddy shoreline, disaster struck. Capsize! Sputtering in the brown water I worked to right my dainty craft, just as we’d been taught earlier that morning, and after a fraught few minutes the whole ordeal had been dealt with. I had done it, met the adversity of a novel challenge and found myself remarkably unscathed on the other side. Within a few years I was having the time of my life racing dinghies in the Columbia River gorge, thoroughly hooked on pushing small boats to their limits in small craft advisory conditions.

Yet the great gift of small boat sailing is that there is always another hurdle to be overcome. As I immersed into the local high school racing program in Lasers, 420s, and 29ers, it meant long days of independence on the water, where success and failure were pinned on nobody but myself. There was no opting out of the mental and physical challenges presented by dinghy racing as a teenager, however there were also no external distractions. Certainly no part of my schoolwork offered me five hours or more to focus on learning a single topic through trial and error. If I had a bad race start, or played the shifts incorrectly, then it was all my fault, but I also had the opportunity to “build a bridge and get over it,” get my head back into the race and attempt to rectify the mistake. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t, but that process of solving challenging situations by myself and conditioning a determined mental resolve is something I’m thankful for from my dinghy racing days. For an adolescent kid still finding himself within the broader world, focused time onboard small boats to think—without parents, teachers or the internet nearby—was a real gift.

The Race to Alaska (R2AK) would serve as the pinnacle of my teenage development, as me and four dinghy-racing friends (with myself as skipper) raced a 29-foot fiberglass sloop from Washington to Alaska, finishing in just over seven days. While perhaps not a true “small boat,” it sure felt that way with five of us onboard, and the experience fits nicely into the narrative here so I’m rolling with it. Our average age was just 19 years, and we were proud to be the first team to finish with such a young crew. From a sailing ability perspective we were all well prepared for the task of racing up the inside passage, but for most of us it would be the furthest from civilization (not to mention rescue) we had ever been. We certainly reveled in the challenge. Nobody was coming to rescue us and we knew it. Through wrapped spinnakers at 2am, missed tidal gates and broaches in Dixon entrance, we problem solved our way north and grew as young adults in the process. By the end I certainly felt I’d gotten a unique chance to prove myself as a young person outside the guardrails that flank most teenagers in this day and age. I’m stoked to say that our R2AK team age benchmark has since been lowered several times in the last few races. While I am unsure of exactly where the age line is now drawn, the enthusiasm of young teams to take on such a challenging race shows there is still an appetite in teenagers for real, no holds barred adventure in an age of internet ubiquity.

The negative impact of a continuous internet deluge on teenagers has been well documented, and so I will only touch on it briefly here to bolster my broader argument in favor of young people spending time in small boats. A study referenced by the Mayo Clinic found that three hours of social media use per day by teens in the early 2010s was linked to a higher risk of mental health concerns. Since my teenage years, internet addiction has only become a more common affliction amongst younger people. Likely fueled by this, the American Psychological Association reports that teenage suicide rates are on the rise across all demographics. The kids are not alright. Yet if my experience, and the experiences of countless other teens who pass through dinghy sailing programs are any indication, the self-confidence gained through these programs can be a bright spot amidst the maelstrom of adolescence.

Growing Small-Boat Usage in the 20-40 Age Group

For those in their 20s, such as myself, escaping the expectations of fledgling careers can easily be done on a hiking trail, or even strolling through a local park. However, as many of us die-hard small boat users know all too well, there is something truly special about pushing off the dock and leaving it all behind to flit across the waves for a day or two. It is my belief that there is an opportunity to grow small boat sailing within my age demographic, but at the same time a big disconnect exists between potential small-boat sailors and the world of small boats.

Across the U.S. there are young people “graduating” from the college-sailing pipeline and leaving the hobby behind. To put it bluntly, we are a generation low on disposable income, and our opinion of bastion institutions such as (elitist) yacht clubs is at an all-time low. After all, we’re making low wages during a historic highwater mark in rent prices. Why on earth would we crew on some multi-millionaire’s souped-up carbon race boat just to hear him yell at the millionaire next to him on the start line?

Quite frankly, most people my age don’t know that our subculture of small-boat sailing even exists, but I posit that our “sailing for sailing’s sake” attitude could gain real traction if given enough exposure. For example, there are a great many similarities between small boat cruising and bikepacking, another lowkey “take it as it comes” hobby that has flourished in recent years. As an ardent enjoyer of both activities, I am confident that small boat sailing could be aimed at the same crowd using their long weekends off to pedal the hinterlands with the wind in their hair. In our recent Costs of Small Boats survey, 53% of the submitted vessels cost less than $5,000 (inflation adjusted), putting our hobby squarely within the (startup cost) price range of bikepacking, mountain biking, or a few seasons of downhill skiing. Plus, the cost of used small boats that could be used for camp-cruising is well below that of camper vans, our most similar land-based travel activity.

So where do all these musings leave us? Firstly, I’d like to make an impassioned pitch for you to support your local dinghy sailing program since teenagers today are in desperate need of the escapism and self-confidence provided by time in small boats. Additionally, if you know folks in their 20s and 30s who partake in other forms of outdoor recreation, offer to take them sailing at some point this summer. Sailing can be intimidating to a first-timer of any age, just like it was for me at 8 years old, and a steady hand hovering near the tiller can make all the difference. Lastly, if I may be so bold, allowing new converts to borrow your boat for an introductory overnight trip, or taking them on one yourself (read my column where I did just tha here) may be the golden ticket to hooking them into our community for the rest of their lives.

So fair weather and a following breeze until we next cross tacks, by the wind and over the water. •SCA•