Sail Training

Sail training is an outdoor adventure activity for “young” people of all ages. It is a defined programme of instruction in sail handling, navigation, passage making, safety at sea, and ship management. But its purpose goes far, far beyond this. Cape Windjammers uses this empowering experience principally as a means to help young people learn about themselves, discover hidden strengths and talents, and understand the value of others and of working as a team.
Sail Training is committed to the idea that an intensive experience has a great impact on learning. The more intensely the experience the greater and sustainable the learning effect.

Sailing on a Tall Ship creates strong impressions and is physically and emotionally challenging. Their demands for both individual and team effort bring participants closer to one another - often for life. Nothing connects people better and more permanently than the shared experience of facing and overcoming a challenge. This belief lies behind the Cape Windjammers Education Trust’s initiative for the FIRST AFRICAN SAIL TRAINING SHIP.

Sail Training is a unique and effective tool to support processes of:
Personal development
Career Development
Peace Building and Reconciliation

Sail Training as a tool can be used in various spheres of life - arts, sports culture, education, politics, community development as well as business.

See how Sail Training is used in the international context www.lamitopsail.org, www.sailtraininginternational.org

Personal development

In a world that can be excluding and challenging, sailing as part of a Tall Ship’s crew can make for a participative and empowering experience. 

The intensive experience of the own person on the ship, an unfamiliar context as well as the close experience of nature contribute to personal growth and empowerment:

• Increase of self awareness,
• self-initiative,
• self confidence and a sense of empow erment;
• discuss and debate and to be able to make choices,
• learn to handle criticism
• learn to problem solve,
• communicate ideas and information,
• evaluate achievements
  
  

Career Development

Cape Windjammers Education Trust offers various opportunities for career development:

• Career Training in local industries such as merchant marine, navy, fishery, shipbuilding and catering
• Acquisition of skills in Seamanship, sailmaking, rigging and other crafts, environmental awareness, First Aid, Safety at Sea, Fire fighting (e.g. STCW 95 certification, Competent Crew certification).
• Hands on learning & application of sciences like (Nautical Maths, Navigation, Meteorology, Cartography, Maritime History and Biology, environmental awareness)
• Voluntary involvement in the organisation allows for exposure and development of skills in a wide range of careers such as journalism, film and photo, conflict resolution, community development and administration.

For more information on the Cape Windjammers Education Trust’s volunteering programme please go to volunteering programme.

Peace Building and Reconciliation

Sailing on a Tall Ship brings people together. A Tall Ship can only be moved together, in a trusted and joint team and through shared action of all participants. This experience contributes to the development of SOCIAL SKILLS:

• learn from each other and together;
• take responsibility for self and others;
• co-operation and communication;
• teamwork and conflict handling ability

Personal and social skills learned and practiced on the ship enable participants to constructively engage with the ongoing transformation process of South African society.

The experience of how far and fast the Tall Ship can go through shared action of all participants is a crucial experience for participants to take home, when faced with the task to foster personal and social development in their home situations and communities, which often means to (re-) build relationships in their families and communities.

As a contrast to shore life the ship provides a space of encounter for people from the different social and cultural backgrounds of South African society. Cape Windjammers Education Trust offers exciting intercultural activities, using sailing as adventure and the ship as a tool that helps participants understand and overcome their personal differences and to develop a more enlightened view of “the other”.

Cape Windjammers Education Trust is committed to the idea that the experiences made on the ship can break down barriers that have been inscribed in people’s mind with their mothers' milk.