An inner city state school has bought an old race yacht...

Halcyon Yachts

Halcyon Yachts

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www.halcyonyachts.com
Scaramouche is the product of a unique project that will enable many new young and enthusiastic sailors to access and experience the thrills of sailing a racing yacht.


She was built by Palmer Johnson and was originally launched in 1981 to represent the USA in the Admirals Cup. She had been out of the water for some time when I recently arrived to collect her.

With two teachers and seven teenagers as crew we sailed her to her new home in Poole - it really was a yacht delivery with a difference!

We will be regularly helping deliver training to the pupils and teachers of Greig City Academy. She will be entering various regattas including the Round the Island Race in 2016 and perhaps one day the Fastnet!

It's a really exciting project and the kids have already benefitted so much! They are onboard now painting and varnishing the interior.

http://gcasailing.com

Pete
 
Great news!

Sailing is an activity that can be quite profound for some young people. Self esteem, self confidence, communication, working with other people..... I've seen it with a small charity I'm associated with that offers sailing and other outdoor activities, often to inner city children and some with special needs. It is so satisfying to see troubled children come back over several years, first as "students", then as volunteers and, sometimes, then as staff. Then, maybe, off to university or an apprenticeship and back as visitors from their new careers. I am quite sure that the sailing and the refusal of our little outfit to "give up" on them has made the fundamental difference.

Good luck to the school, it's pupils and staff, to you and to the success of the Scaramouche! :D
 
sailorman said:
A brilliant idea, did they get the idea from the French, we are light years behind their teaching of sailing in schools
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Although not school based, in the late 1970s, Strathclyde Regional Council bought a Rival 41 hull and had Youth Opportunity (YOPers) team fit it out as part of skills development. The boat then went onto be a Sail Training Vessel for Social Works Community Education department. She was a well known yacht on the Clyde sailing with Glasgow's finest. It appears that stuff like this has fallen by the wayside these days although many of the sail training yachts used by Regional Councils are still about. A few of the private schools had their own yachts and even Rolls Royce (Merlin of Clyde) had a large yacht for apprentices based on the Clyde. As a Nation with such a seafaring history it is a shame we don't do more of this.

http://www.eastendendeavour.org.uk/articles/article.php?articleID=19 This is Strathclyde Regional councils yacht, now sold on to private enterprise.

In my day at school we were fortunate to be based above a manmade loch and as such had sailing club run by the Head of Biology. He had a GK 29 and we raced with him and cruised afar in the days when a phone call to parents was all the permission that was needed. Lanarkshire region (as far inland as you can get in Scotland plus heavy industry, working class to boot) had a healthy schools dinghy sailing programme with regular regattas, sail training and RYA programmes. Much of this was backed up with Outdoor Education centres which were heavily subsidised by the regional council. Personally, I have a lot to thank for this as it lead to a career sailing in the early years after I left school. My own kids school still does sailing but uses the services of a sailing school and don't do any offshore sailing at all. As far as I can tell, in Scotland at least, we have taken a backward step with regards to sail training at school level.
 
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Do they need sails?

I can think of a few owners who'd love to pass on their old race sails to such a great project. If you think they might be interested feel free to post the rig dimensions and I'll see if I can come up with anything that might work.
 
flaming said:
Do they need sails?

I can think of a few owners who'd love to pass on their old race sails to such a great project. If you think they might be interested feel free to post the rig dimensions and I'll see if I can come up with anything that might work.
Click to expand...

Bravo, Flaming! :)
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
Although not school based, in the late 1970s, Strathclyde Regional Council bought a Rival 41 hull and had Youth Opportunity (YOPers) team fit it out as part of skills development. ...
Click to expand...

Around the same time, Renfrew division (Strathclyde) had an excellent scheme where teachers were trained as sailing instructors on the proviso that we then gave up our time (albeit paid) to train youngsters at evenings and weekends at Royal West in Greenock on GP14s, Wayfarers, 420s, 505s, the usual suspects. I'd love to hear that scheme continues to flourish, but I hae ma doubts.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
Although not school based, in the late 1970s, Strathclyde Regional Council bought a Rival 41 hull and had Youth Opportunity (YOPers) team fit it out as part of skills development. The boat then went onto be a Sail Training Vessel for Social Works Community Education department. She was a well known yacht on the Clyde sailing with Glasgow's finest. It appears that stuff like this has fallen by the wayside these days although many of the sail training yachts used by Regional Councils are still about. A few of the private schools had their own yachts and even Rolls Royce (Merlin of Clyde) had a large yacht for apprentices based on the Clyde. As a Nation with such a seafaring history it is a shame we don't do more of this.

http://www.eastendendeavour.org.uk/articles/article.php?articleID=19 This is Strathclyde Regional councils yacht, now sold on to private enterprise.

In my day at school we were fortunate to be based above a manmade loch and as such had sailing club run by the Head of Biology. He had a GK 29 and we raced with him and cruised afar in the days when a phone call to parents was all the permission that was needed. Lanarkshire region (as far inland as you can get in Scotland plus heavy industry, working class to boot) had a healthy schools dinghy sailing programme with regular regattas, sail training and RYA programmes. Much of this was backed up with Outdoor Education centres which were heavily subsidised by the regional council. Personally, I have a lot to thank for this as it lead to a career sailing in the early years after I left school. My own kids school still does sailing but uses the services of a sailing school and don't do any offshore sailing at all. As far as I can tell, in Scotland at least, we have taken a backward step with regards to sail training at school level.
Click to expand...

+1 for the above

I was lucky to be a member of The Glasgow Schools' Sailing Club run initially by Glasgow Corporation and subsequently by Strathclyde Region. This was named 'The Brassbounders' there was a reason but disappeared in the mists of time.

The club was based at Hogganfield Loch in the east end and when I started had 3 Kestrels and a couple of wooden Enterprises. We sailed on a Wednesday night and Saturday am and when I left in about 1973 the club had eight Kestrels. I still have my Helmsman Certificate.

I was also lucky to be sent on the Malcolm Miller as part of the set up from Glasgow Corporation. The club was well attended from all schools in Glasgow. I suppose cut backs inevitably took their toll as I know that the residential schools at both Achnamara (Loch Sween) and Caol Rhuah (Kyles of Bute) are private residences.

Great days.

Regards

Donald
 
Thank you for your generous advice and guidance. I agree with you all but just to reassure you!? Were having the rig simplified to get rid of the hydraulics. I know this will upset racing die hards but we are entering races to compete and learn, rather than extracting everything from our beloved Scaramouche. Tell me about the upkeep- we have already done a lot but have trust funds to help in the future!
Many thanks to Halcyon Yachts for providing the expertise while we get the young, inner city crews sorted and ready!
 
sailorman said:
A brilliant idea, did they get the idea from the French, we are light years behind their teaching of sailing in schools
Click to expand...

The second most amazing thing about moving from a school in Romford to a school in Burnham-on-Crouch in 1970 was that Wednesday afternoon was sports afternoon - which meant grabbing one of the school's Mirror's or GP14's (or my own Heron after the first year) and going sailing on your own or with a mate until around 8 pm or as long as it was light. After that I either cadged a lift home from a teacher or anyone else going in the right direction or walked the 4 miles or so. The most amazing thing was to find that about half of the pupils were girls. What happy days...
 
Serin said:
Great news!

Sailing is an activity that can be quite profound for some young people. Self esteem, self confidence, communication, working with other people..... I've seen it with a small charity I'm associated with that offers sailing and other outdoor activities, often to inner city children and some with special needs. It is so satisfying to see troubled children come back over several years, first as "students", then as volunteers and, sometimes, then as staff. Then, maybe, off to university or an apprenticeship and back as visitors from their new careers. I am quite sure that the sailing and the refusal of our little outfit to "give up" on them has made the fundamental difference.

Good luck to the school, it's pupils and staff, to you and to the success of the Scaramouche! :D
Click to expand...

Sounds great. Give it a plug! Website??
 
JonHolt said:
Thank you for your generous advice and guidance. I agree with you all but just to reassure you!? Were having the rig simplified to get rid of the hydraulics. I know this will upset racing die hards but we are entering races to compete and learn, rather than extracting everything from our beloved Scaramouche. Tell me about the upkeep- we have already done a lot but have trust funds to help in the future!
Many thanks to Halcyon Yachts for providing the expertise while we get the young, inner city crews sorted and ready!
Click to expand...

A good project, congratulations
For those that are interested link to the School's sailing section here http://gcasailing.com/
 
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Great to see you in Brighton the other day, Scaramouche. The young people seemed great and it filled me with hope for the future of yachting.
I can't tell you how hard it was not to direct you to raft or moor next to another large yacht we happened to have visiting- my VHF message on 80 would have gone 'Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you moor against Fandango'! ?
(Fandango was a couple of boats along from you on the pontoon)
 
phanakapan said:
Great to see you in Brighton the other day, Scaramouche. The young people seemed great and it filled me with hope for the future of yachting.
I can't tell you how hard it was not to direct you to raft or moor next to another large yacht we happened to have visiting- my VHF message on 80 would have gone 'Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you moor against Fandango'! ��
(Fandango was a couple of boats along from you on the pontoon)
Click to expand...

I did see a little silhouetto of a man,

Was that you?

Pete
 
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