Job Description of a Sailing Coach
A Day in a Life of a Sailing Coach
One of my favorite hobbies and competitive sports is sailing. Most people have an image of a large sail boat with people drinking and wearing boat shoes, when they think sailing. Even though I like to casually sail occasionally. I especially love to race dinghies (small sailboats) competitively. I enjoy sailing so much that I coached at my yacht club for a year and a half.
A sailing coach is exactly what it sounds like, a person who teaches sailing. Sailing is a very unique sport to get into and to learn because of the limited access to equipment and coaches a person might not have. At the yacht club where I coached, we provide everything a kid would need to learn to sail. I coached mainly beginner sailors who had almost no experience or not at all. Our goal as coaches, each week, was to have each kid driving and be comfortable in the boat by the end of the week. This is no easy task.
There are three descriptions that help define what I do as a sailing coach and I will provide example for each:
- Teacher
- Friend
- Camp Counselor
Teacher
The most important role of a sailing coach is to be a teacher. Each day we must be able to teach our students something new that they don't even know the jargon for. We do this by doing the following:
- Prepare multiple lesson plans for each day, in case the weather changed
- Conforming our teaching style to each student
- Whenever something major happens, can to hold our composure
While everyone has been taught by a teacher, teaching something new to someone else is a harder task. I had to deal with many different types of people who learned differently than the person next to them. For example, we had a student with a form of autism in our class and the biggest challenge for us was communicating with him because he struggled with telling us if he didn't understand something. Also, he wasn't as confident in himself than the other kids, but we figured out that if we sailed with him in the same boat he was confident and learned some of the skills. Except, when he tried to sail by himself he would get frustrated and want to get out. We figured out that if we took small breaks with him and talked to him about what he did, he became to be more confident in himself. Although this was a first for us, this example shows how we must adapt to different kids teaching needs.
Friend
This role is self-explanatory. During the summer we had a overnight program for the kids that would last a week at a time. On top of being a teacher or a camp counselor, we had to be able to connect with the kids and help them with their problems. There was a handful of major time where we had to be a friend:
- Helping them with home sickness
- Talking to them about their problems
- Finding out what they were interested and connecting with them
Here's an example. During the first week of overnight camp, while we were getting ready for bed, one of the kids came up to me and told me that another kid was crying. I honestly didn't know how to deal with this, so one of the other coaches went up to him and asked him why he was crying. The kid said that he missed his parents and that he didn't want to be here, the usual thing a kid says when they are home sick. The other coach took him to the coach and started to talk to him about what the kid was interested in. After a while, the kid started to forget that he was home sick. From my perspective it seemed as if the kid believed that the coach and he were friends and trusted him.
Camp Counselor
Being a camp counselor is more than just making sure the kids are having fun, it is making sure that they are safe when they are sailing. In the sport of sailing there are many risks that some people do not realize. From the 12-foot sail boat flipping over and the kid possibly getting stuck underneath to getting hit in the head by the boom. (Boom is a metal pole that helps the sail keeps its form, but is at head height.) On top of the hazards of sailing, we must make sure the kids are in a safe environment. We accomplish this by doing these things:
- Informing the kids of the hazards and what to do to avoid them
- Checking on kids to make sure they are having fun
- Always keeping an eye on everyone when we are on the water
- Having a game plan when stuff goes wrong
Hi Paulsen, competitive sailing is an extremely interesting hobby to have. I admire your high level of organization and preparation prior to teaching. This way when you do teach new sailors how to sail it becomes a seamless process. Also, adapting to various circumstances and being able to cope is a crucial skill to have in life so you can interact with all different types of people. How would you approach and resolve an emergency in the San Francisco bay if a crisis did occur?
ReplyDeleteHi Will, after reading your draft in class, I am amazed by your experience on the sea. The idea of teaching little kids how to sail is definitely an adorable one. You talked about how you have to treat them like friends but also help them get through homesick like a camping counselor make the jobs like sailing coach becomes both adventurous and loving. I hope you can carry on and continue this passionate career!
ReplyDeleteHi Will, I sailed FJs and 420s in high school and was a sailing coach for a few summers too! I bet we know some of the same people! I remember sailing in a regatta on Treasure Island as a junior in high school and it was beyond difficult, so I can't imagine having to be responsible for kids in those conditions. Really impressive!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI love the pictures you included of your work! Seems like a very fun and rewarding experience. As difficult as working with kids is sometimes, I know how exciting and heartwarming it can be at times as well.