The Irish Optimist Dinghy Association of Ireland (IODAI) will hold its spring training week at Baltimore sailing Club in West Cork over the February 2016 Mid-term break. This is Ireland’s largest sailing camp and generally caters for up to 160 sailors from 8 – 15 yrs old.
The village of Baltimore will be effectively taken over by approximately 160 keen sailors and their families for the week. A team of International coaches from Greece, & Poland are joined by top Irish coaches to provide training for sailors of all competencies, from those who have only recently started to sail to those who are competing internationally.
The Baltimore event is considered to be one of the top International clinics in Europe. It is very much a family-oriented event, with a programme of activities for children too young to sail, and events also organised for adults, such as the ‘How to Rig an Oppi’ class for novice parents! Schull & Fitbones
provides activities for those 5 years and upwards who are not yet sailing, they do Baltimore Treasure Hunt and Playground games, Sherkin Island trip and an Adventure Challenge in Lough Hyne Woods .
The event is organised by IODAI which is comprised of volunteers, which are the parents of sailors. It takes 25 – 30 volunteers per day to run the event efficiently and the overall event is managed by Mandy Kelly and assisted by Sara Lacy both parents of sailors.
Evening activities are also on offer, including the ever-popular ‘a cinema night, disco night and of course the cake competition on the last day of sailing. In addition the week finishes off with a one day regatta which helps sailors consolidate all they have learnt during the week & to put it into practice.
An IODAI forum takes place during the Baltimore week where all parents are invited to express their views or seek information on the running of the Optimist class.
Published in Optimist
Published in
Optimist
Tagged under
About The Author
Afloat.ie Team
Afloat.ie is Ireland's dedicated marine journalism team.
Have you got a story for our reporters? Email us here.
We've got a favour to ask
More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.
Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.
So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.
