WATCH LEADERS FOR BETTER SAIL TRAINING

Background Since there was shortage of competent sail trainers and lack of well-designed training programs and learning materials to prepare crew as competent sail trainers to run sail training programs for amateurs, 3 sail training organizations (STA Latvia, SNUPU, Finland and ATYLA Foundation, Spain) combined their experiences and competences and worked together to analyze and improve their sail training programs to support their crew (Watch Leaders) to deliver sail training programs. Objectives 1. to analyze existing crew training programs, to improve them, to exchange and test them with partners;2. to develop new concepts, methods and learning materials for crew trainings (Watch Leaders) in written & video formats;3. to organize 2 international sail training programs to train at least 24 Watch Leaders on 2 different sail training ships;4. to organize 2 international team meetings on 2 sail training yachts;5. to disseminate the project’s results on a national & international level. Implementation In 2021, 3 partners deeply analyzed their existing crew training programs on a local level, identified their strengths and needs for improvements, then worked on developing more structured programs, complemented with new methods, video and written learning materials. In 2022, 4 transnational experience exchange meetings with crew training were organized to share and test results, and train crew internationally. The results were shared with the international sail training community. Achievements 3 local watch leader training programs were analyzed & developed with new concepts, methods & learning materials, including 12h & 24h sail training concepts, 1 long-term course 2 learning check-lists & 5 tutorial videos;4 international crew training programs for watch leaders & skippers were organized;51 (74) crew members have improved their sail training skills on 4 sail training vessels; 8 local & 2 international results' dissemination events organized;1 international network strengthened.