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WCSC Jr. Sail Camp adds showmanship
to curriculum
By Pete Wachsberger
 Sixty-three
young people are now substantially more proficient and safer sailors
than they were at the beginning of July, thanks to two weekends of
intense but fun training they experienced at Western Carolina
Sailing Club’s 2008 Jr. Sail Camp held near the club’s facilities on
Lake Hartwell.
The students, who ranged in age from 8 to 18, were
taught a range of skills from basic safety to advanced racing
techniques by a group of certified instructors, all members of the
club.
The camp continued a tradition designed to promote
inclusion of all family members in club activities, including the
competitive ones. However, one tradition was altered for 2008; the
race to name WCSC’s Junior Champion was not included in the agenda,
but instead will be held as a separate event on Labor Day weekend.
In 2007, that move was forced upon the organizers when storms kept
students ashore for two of the four days, and the race was
pre-empted by the need to get in as much actual training as
possible. So as to not be caught in the same predicament, it was
determined that a change of tradition was called for, and Labor Day
Weekend will henceforth be the scheduled time of each year’s race.
Unlike the storm-plagued 2007 Camp, this year’s
affair went off virtually without a hitch. However, despite last
year’s problems, students in the advanced group seemed to have
picked up on one unintended lesson.
 That
lesson was, “if the little guy with the big camera comes by, a
handstand could get you on the front page?” During the 2007 event,
Ryan Harder, then 16, amused himself and entertained spectators
during a period of extreme calm between storms by performing a
handstand on the foredeck of his Laser. A Lakeside News camera
caught the moment, and it became the front page image for the August
print edition, and was the featured art piece on the homepage of
Lakeside’s online edition for several months, until replaced by an
image from Spring Fever Regatta.
So, when the same photographer showed up to
cover the advanced classes being taught to students in Lasers and
420’s, Ryan urged his fellow students to follow his lead, and get
into their handstands. Several did, with varying degrees of
success. One of the less proficient seemed disappointed to later
find out that when his failure sent him overboard, the picture was
“nothing but splash.”
That was the only thing which even came close to
being classified as an accident throughout the entire event. Even
though at times the younger groups’ exits from and entrances into
the harbor seemed quite chaotic and crowded, the only times any of
the participants ended up in the lake were during capsize drills or
during breaks when some would go for a lifejacket supported swim to
cool off.
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