Guest Editorial: Exceeding all expectations in SVG by Jennifer Trumble

She has always had a dream to run her own sailing school. A move seven years ago to the beautiful island of St Vincent gave her the opportunity to realise this dream, but little did she know, this was just the start.

Now as the President of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Sailing Association, Jenny is reigniting sailing in this nation of historic seafaring traditions and indigenous boat building skills. Here she tells us about how her own hard work, a bit of help from World Sailing and a rock star, have helped hearts “thunder with joy”.

Having fallen in love with the fantastic sailing area of the Grenadines on bareboat charters we were really surprised, when we relocated here, that there was no sailing youth programme. Especially as we had seen the traditional “Double Enders” still being built and raced in the Grenadine islands.

Where it all began

I had always dreamt of running my own sailing school and introducing the ‘Vincy’ kids to sailing but was not sure where to start. Whilst considering this, in true Caribbean fashion, my husband Martin and I were asked, at very late notice, if we’d run a summer sail camp.

We borrowed some Optis from Bequia, the neighbouring island, that arrived on the back of a pick-up truck a day before the camp started. On that first morning 20 kids turned up, it was absolute bedlam, but everyone had a brilliant time and left wanting more.

We continued to borrow boats here and there and with the help of local entrepreneur and avid sailor, Kelly Glass, we sourced four O’pen Bics/Skiffs. They aren’t the best suited boats to teach children to sail in, but it got them on the water and gave us time to source funds for training boats.

When my mum, a passionate sailor, passed away, we used her inheritance to buy several Optimist boats and started a small training programme. Unfortunately, the kids we had taught in the Bics didn’t like the Optis as much because they didn’t go as fast as they wanted. But it allowed me to teach them properly – how to tack and gybe, which is really hard to do in a Bic because they slide around.

And that’s where we started.

A nation of sailors

Over the last five years, despite Covid and a volcanic eruption, we have taught about 300 children, and attracted some local sponsors. This allowed us to expand our programme and run sail camps all over the Grenadines. We take the boats either lashed to the front of old charter yachts or on the ferries. In some of the villages they may not have had exactly the right clothes, shoes or equipment, but the smiles on their faces once they can control their own boats is joyful. In these communities sailing was a necessity two generations ago and it is wonderful to see the seniors come out to support us, tell stories and show off their sailing skills to the kids. We often leave with the seniors and village youth coming together to help move sailing forward.

On one island we just turned up with the boats on a beach, found some kids swimming in the sea and asked them if they wanted to sail. They all said yes, so we sent them to get their parents’ permission; 13 kids ran home, 10 came back with the permission slips signed, three came back without signatures. I have never seen such disappointed kids in my life, but we couldn’t take them out. Some of these kids are now pushing to become coaches.

As we didn’t have a pool of older sailors, we persuaded Rob Holden, World Sailing Training Delivery Manager, to come over, mid-pandemic. We found 15 kids from across the islands, and he was able to instil the methodology of how to teach somebody to sail which has absolutely revolutionised the whole setup.

The club still needs better equipment, but we are working hard to get more sponsorship money in. Rob stressed coaches should be a priority and we have invested a lot in that.

We still want to run more coaching courses to improve the skills and confidence of the older kids, we have said to them: ‘If you would like to be a coach, you have to improve your own sailing first’.

Building momentum

World Sailing’s involvement generated a lot of publicity, which caught the attention of the government. Having government support has now brought in more sailors, so now we have a race coach and a sports psychologist.

There is still an enormous groundswell, we now have great support from a network of people across the islands and we are able to get things done, local to local. Every time we run an event, we get so much interest, so we know there is huge untapped potential amongst the kids and adults. The joy and the fun and the experiences that they all get is incredible to see, and some of the poorest kids are earning money by helping at the club and washing the boats, so they are very keen to continue.

Steering the Course

The impact of Steering the Course has also been phenomenal. It was completely oversubscribed. Nearly 50 women turned up and we had to do relays to get everyone through. I really thought it was going to be the worst feedback that we’ve ever had, but so many came back saying they wanted to sign up for lessons.

This is a nation with a lot of yacht charter companies and some of the best blue water sailing in the world, and now we can show the potential of sailing as a career.  An opportunity that wouldn’t be available without the sailing program. We are based at a high-end hotel and many of the kids would never dream of walking into a place like this, but now they walk in with confidence and their whole character has changed. Now they see that there are options. We talk about goals – some of them say ‘I want to be a ship’s pilot’ or ‘I want to be a ship’s captain’ and we even have Olympic aspirations via the World Sailing Emerging Nations Program and the support and encouragement we receive from Cat Duncan and Rob Holden at World Sailing.

Our experience has opened lots of doors, but one of the most amazing was teaching Canadian singer and Mustique resident Bryan Adams to sail. He has a foundation and, having heard our story, donated towards this summer’s sail camp program. The extra sponsorship let us complete a much larger summer program, teaching over 70 kids to sail.

We were invited to run a sail camp in Mustique, a private Grenadine Island. The camp was half kids from the local village and half of the homeowner’s kids, which was great fun. There is huge disparity, but the Mustique Company and homeowners are always trying to achieve greater integration and hope sailing will assist.

Creating a legacy

Our long-term goal is to get a small number of training boats in all the communities that complete a sail camp, we have the contacts and interest, but are still continue the fund raising. We recently secured some funding from a financial services company in Ireland, Kinsale Capital Management, and heavy discounts from a Freight company, Kestrel Worldwide Shipping, that services the islands from the UK and US. We hope this will allow us to bring in a couple of proper double handers, that will allow us to train adults and generate more revenue. We are also considering building relationships with clubs in North America and Europe to exchange coaches and help us upgrade our aging fleet.

We have been so lucky to have this opportunity and in the words of a dad from Union Island when he saw his son had learnt to sail “It makes my heart thunder with joy”.