Claire Wilson — A Young Sailor With a Mature Passion
We often hear sailors saying, “Start ’em young,” or, “I wish I’d started when I was that age.” Driving down the road one day, we saw our neighbor coming up the hill. It’s a narrow street, so, as you do when bumping into neighbors, we stopped for a chat.
“Hey, we were just having breakfast at Lighthouse, and Claire picked up a Latitude magazine and started reading,” neighbor Dave Wilson said with excitement in his voice. “She loves it!”
Claire is 9 years old, soon to be 10, and is a youth sailor at the Sausalito Yacht Club (SYC). “Perhaps we should do a story on Claire,” we said.
“Oh, she would love that,” Dave exclaimed. And so we did. We started by reaching out to SYC Youth Sailing Director Caitie Clarkson to learn about the club’s youth sailing program, and how Claire, and kids like her, can mature as sailors as they progress through the system.
The SYC Youth Sailing Program caters to kids from age 5 through 18. The 5-year-olds are launched as Tiny Sailors, learning to feel comfortable on the water. Next, they’re paired off to doublehand the RS Tera until they feel ready to try sailing solo. According to Caitie, Claire is a strong, confident sailor. “She never wanted to sail with another kid. She always had to do it by herself,” Caitie explains. “She’s had friends in the intermediate class with her, and we’ve asked her if she wants to sail with her friend, and she’s like, ‘No.'” So Claire sails the Tera by herself, and has earned herself a spot on the race team. To date she has competed in three regattas, including the Pacific Coast Championships. And while she has yet to score a win, Claire is doing better than she’d imagined. “I thought I was going to completely lose,” she says.
Two years ago, Claire joined the SYC Youth Program at the suggestion of her parents, and, as her father, Dave, said, she loves it. “I was excited to start,” Claire tells us. When we comment that she started singlehanding her boat quite early in the program, she replies, “I don’t have to tell people what I’m doing, I just do it.” Claire feels she has more control of the boat this way.
Of course, when you’re the only sailor in the boat, you’re also the only person who can deal with any mishaps, like when her mainsheet got caught up in knots during her recent regatta. “It was fun. But the second day, every time, the last three races, the sheet got knotted.” Claire didn’t win; she finished eighth out of 12 boats. But the placings don’t matter at this stage. Right now, it’s the fun of sailing that keeps her coming back. “Sometimes it’s challenging. Sometimes it’s easy. I don’t know, it’s just fun.”