Junior Sail Camps

The sail camps are a fun place to learn safety, sailing and boat handling skills, and respect for the marine environment. Four 5-day camps, Monday through Friday, are held at BYC each summer.  Our sail camps are open to the public for ages 8 to 16. Our instructors are certified by US Sailing.

Scholarships are available for participation in BYC sail camps for families with financial need. See our scholarship application for details.

Junior sailing with BYC is designed for maximum fun and comfort of new sailors while providing greater skill growth and depth of knowledge for experienced sailors. The curriculum is balanced with skill building activities on the water along with age-appropriate activities ashore to help youth and teens become competent sailors and build confidence to continue on to advanced levels of sailing.

Sailboats: Dewitt and Optimist Sailing Dinghies, Alphas, and Lasers

Skills covered:

• Capsize recovery
• Basic sailing maneuvers  - tack, gybe, steer and trim
• Basic vocabulary and sailing concepts - points of sail, parts of the boat 
• Basic seamanship skills - rigging, knot tying, equipment care
  
• Double handed teamwork as skipper and crew
• Optimizing performance to match wind and current conditions.
• Skills to proceed to advanced training and competitive racing.

Adult Sail Classes

Bremerton Yacht Club is stepping up its Sail program to include adults! Join us for four evenings in one of our early summer sessions to learn sailing in fixed-keel sailboats.  Lessons are conducted by dedicated sailing instructors trained in first aid, CPR, water safety and small boat handling skills. Sailboats are fixed keel Columbia 21 sailboats with safe and comfortable cockpits. The course begins with shore side instruction using US Sailing basic keelboat textbooks (included in tuition) followed by practical on-the-water coaching with a student/instructor ratio of 3 to 1.

Sailboats: Columbia 21s

Skills covered: 

• On-the-water safety practices
• Rigging de-rigging keel boats
• Docking skills
• Operating outboards
• Skipper and crew skills
• Awareness of weather, wind, and current conditions
• Man overboard procedures
• Knot tying