SEA Awarded Horder Trophy for Youth Development Through Sail Training
Today, SEA President Joe Rouse along with Vice President Jane Piereth accepted the Garrett Horder Memorial Trophy on behalf of SEA.
This award is presented to the best youth sailing program on the West Coast.
Congratulations to SEA’s fantastic Youth program Director Meghan Hartnett for running a great program!
Here’s the full PCYA press release:
”The Pacific Coast Yachting Association is proud to recognize SEA, Sailing Education Adventures, for outstanding contributions to youth development through sail training. SEA is the recipient of the Garrett Horder Memorial Trophy, 2023.
PCYA Commodore Kimball Livingston said, “SEA is one of those special operations that will start kids when they’re little, keep them through their high school years, bring them back in their college years and bring them back again as adult leaders. I say ‘one of those’ because SEA was not our only entry with that track record to brag about. But we like it that SEA was launched with not much more than a vision and grew into something fine and valuable.”
SEA emphasizes mentoring as a way of learning, volunteering to minimize cost while maximizing experience, and pursuing environmental stewardship as a way of life. From two locations on the San Rafael Canal, on the northern reach of San Francisco Bay, SEA operates a mixed fleet of dinghies, small keelboats and kayaks on the protected waters of the canal. For the advanced, there are adventures on the waters of the great bay beyond.
SEA founder Jane Piereth recalls launching 49 years ago as a learn to sail program for the environmental organization, Oceanic Society. The program grew, then spun off in 1990 to become its own nonprofit “with just a basic sailing camp,” she said. “Now we have dinghy sailing at Marin Yacht Club—a 26 year relationship—and we start little kids at Loch Lomond Marina. That’s where we keep keelboats for adults, and those keelboats provide the stability that beginners need to gain confidence before we put them into dinghies.
“It is important to add that we would not exist without the support of the California Division of Boating and Waterways,” Piereth said. They have paid for most of our boats and funded instructor training and scholarships, as they do for many nonprofits and college teams throughout the state.”
Joe Rouse, president of SEA, observed that children often start out afraid but turn around quickly as they experience safe sailing, make new friends, and discover a larger world. “Outstanding performers can become junior instructors. Then they don’t pay fees, and parents like that. At 16, they can become paid counselors, and if they earn Level 1 certification from US Sailing, they become head counselors.
“Our instructors rarely come from outside,” Rouse said. “We develop our own. Meghan Hartnett teaches sailing but also teaches ocean ecology. Children are surprised to learn, for example, that phytoplankton generate more oxygen for the atmosphere than trees. Meghan came here as a kid, and now she is our youth program director.”
SEA today has 20 sailing dinghies and eight support boats for 120 children and youth who come to the program each year. They continue to develop their own.
About the Pacific Coast Yachting Association
PCYA was founded in 1923 to promote the greatest good across the spectrum of yachting on the Pacific Coast of North America and Hawaii. Its constituents are the ten associations from San Diego to Vancouver that represent, in turn, hundreds of clubs and thousands of sailors.
The Garrett Horder Memorial Trophy is a 19th century Currier & Ives print of the sail/steam vessel San Francisco, displayed in the Library of St. Francis Yacht Club. It has been awarded since 2000.”
