![st francis yacht club youth sailing facebook](https://www.sail-world.com/Library/Images/facebook-sw.png)
- CLASSIFIEDS
- NEWSLETTERS
- SUBMIT NEWS
![st francis yacht club youth sailing Doyle_SailWorld_300x350px-05](https://www.sail-world.com/images/thumbnails/Doyle_SailWorld_300x350px-05-202403050941.jpg)
- Latest videos, from 2024
- Oldest videos, from 2003 onwards
![st francis yacht club youth sailing 2024 fill-in (bottom)](https://www.sail-world.com/images/thumbnails/Yacht-and-Yachting-leaderboard-s-upffront-generic-202312191018.jpg)
Leading Yacht Clubs • Working Together • Sharing Experiences
![](http://gu.isilkul.online/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.jpg)
Offering a bigger experience of sailing
Kimball Livingston
St. Francis Yacht Club
June 21, 2023
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://icoyc.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/StFYC_Youth-Sailing_Article-Image-2_06.2023.jpg)
By Kimball Livingston, St. Francis Yacht Club
When Kimball Livingston was the 2016 Commodore of St. Francis Yacht Club he led an initiative that changed the focus of his club’s youth program. Now with the title of Staff Commodore Ambassador to Youth Sailing\, he offers this update.
I follow, fascinated, the stream of commentary in our sport’s media expressing pride, dismay, optimism/pessimism and, occasionally, disdain for the state of youth sailing in this moment when everything is happening at once. Gone are the days of advancing automatically from this little-kid boat to that big-kid boat. Kids are being diverted into the newest, fastest thing, including other, related watersports—wingfoiling has proven irresistible to the young and not so young at StFYC. It’s also proving to be more teachable and cost-effective than the kiting it is largely replacing, and we think it’s safer too.
After years of fretting that we couldn’t get teens kiting because of the windy, current-ridden waters in front of StFYC—and sending kids elsewhere to learn—we’re teaching the sport of foiling at last. First on a tow-behind. Then the kids get their wings.
So far, we’ve produced no experts to follow in the footsteps of our world champion kite sailors, but our newly minted, foiling 15-year-olds are about same age as six-time Formula Kite World Champion and StFYC member Daniela Moroz when she first launched from Crissy Field Beach adjacent to our clubhouse.
All my kids want to foil. That’s why the dinghy park is not Waszp-free.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://icoyc.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/StFYC_Youth-Sailing_Article-Image-1_06.2023.jpg)
Everything happening at once? We’re planning a free one-day clinic for Fevas and Teras on the Friday ahead of their Pacific Coast Championships, July 22-23, 2023. We believe in Teras as singlehanded trainers and Fevas as a doublehanded tweener. Both fleets deserve to grow, and the reasonably-priced Feva, with its asymmetric kite and rotomolded skiff shape, is a planing thrill ride and a great stepping-stone to the next fast thing.
That is why we’re offering clinics for both fleets, and that is why we’re making the clinics free, with the St. Francis Sailing Foundation making it possible. Tera coaching at press time is TBA, but Feva World Champion Ben Hutton-Penman will coach Fevas. That’s one big, y’all come.
Meanwhile, a cadre of our older teens will soon be off to C420 regattas on Lake Michigan and the East Coast of the United States. The C420 was designed in 1959, so cutting edge it’s not, but with C420s we get to teach spinnaker and trapeze, unlike with the white-sails-only FJs our kids have to sail to participate in high school sailing in the Pacific Coast district.
Just as every club has its own character, capabilities and limitations, we work with ours. StFYC walked away from spring-semester high school sailing beginning in 2018 to offer a bigger experience of sailing. But to be clear: Any of our seven high school teams that choose to race spring regattas on their own are supported with cheap boat charters and encouragement. The coaches are meanwhile coaching elsewhere. Some teams carry on, and it’s good for them.
For international readers: In the USA, our high school sailing teams race in a system building from the local to the regional to the national level in robust, simple dinghies designed seven decades ago. The high school system feeds effectively into the college system, based on a similar model and often indicted for diverting potential Olympians in critical years of their development. I could easily and unnecessarily scratch open sores and so…
Moving on quickly, I note that our StFYC coaches care very much about the big-picture fun factor to set the hook for a lifetime of sailing. A kid can be a kid around here, but our home in the maw of the Golden Gate wind funnel does not accommodate casual picnic outings. We have an island in the Sacramento Delta for that.
And when it comes to the popular game of comparing class versus class, it occurs to me that for as long as I’ve been sailing, I’ve had friends in Southern California agonizing over the value of Sabots, with their leeboards and a distribution of 100 miles, versus Optis with a reach that girdles the globe. Not to worry about the subset of over-ambitious parents who pop up in any class, I observe simply that SoCal kids sail Sabots, and SoCal kids sail Optis, and when they move to their next boats, they’re the same sailors.
StFYC’s Hoel Menard as a teen skipper was part of our brief flowering as a center of ripping it in Nacra 15 performance catamarans. Now he tells me he’s still learning, sailing alongside UC Santa Barbara sailors in pokey ole FJs.
We ran our Opti Heavy Weather Regatta, with a Slalom, June 15-18, with a few folks asking the Annual Question: “If we sold off all our Optis in favor of Teras, because a Tera is a boat, not a box, and you don’t have to sail-and-bail, sail-and-bail, why run a regatta that our own kids won’t enter?
The answer will remain the same: Because it’s a great event. Kids from Vancouver to San Diego come here to race and get thrashed and go home with bragging rights. Ask Charlie Buckingham how he felt when he won the first one in 2002. By the way, none of our kids worry about any of this. They just want to get out on the water.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing St. Francis Sailing Foundation](https://www.stfsf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/st-francis-sailing-foundation-logo-white.png)
J/22 Program
The J/22 fleet, owned by the St Francis Sailing Foundation and maintained by the St Francis Yacht Club, is much beloved and well-utilized. The fleet started with ten boats christened in 2010 and in 2023, an additional three boats were added to the fleet for a total of 13 boats.
Boat equality is a fundamental requirement in both team and match racing. Once the equipment is equal, the sailors’ capabilities become the primary determinant of outcomes. The Foundation’s J/22 boat program responds to this essential need by providing identical boats of equal age, construction specifications, rigging, sails and level of maintenance for training, practicing and racing in local team and match race events.
Over the years, the J/22 fleet has provided ample opportunities for practice and racing, junior, and learn-to-sail programs. The fleet has been invaluable in promoting sailor development specifically in competitive team and match racing, a format that has grown in significance in the national and international sailing community. The fleet has also been used to host world championship challenge regattas.
In an arrangement with St. Francis Yacht Club, the fleet has full time professional management which assures globally superior race training and competition potential for committed racers.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/stfsf/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/11072443/CRay-StFYC-5496.jpg)
All photos courtesy of Chris Ray.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/CMAF_Scuttlebutt_Banner_v3.jpg)
Published on August 18th, 2024 | by Editor
Reunion of sailing’s purest vanguards
Published on August 18th, 2024 by Editor -->
If you watched the Paris 2024 Olympics, it would not be unfair to say how boardsailing has a speed addition. The new equipment for Windsurf and Kite events have foils, and go blistering fast. So, it is with some curiosity how the fastest growing segment for board events – wingfoiling – has slowed down.
Trading complexity for convenience, sailors may still be on foiling boards, but in their hands is a wing sail. “In other sailing disciplines there is usually a sail and a mast connected to a boat, but we are physically holding our wings in the air,” noted Makani Andrews, Windsurfing Bronze Medalist at 2024 Youth Sailing World Championships.
While not as speedy as windsurf or kite rigs, wingfoil interest is spawning an increase in competition which included the inaugural U.S. WingFoil Championship . Phil Muller, US Sailing’s Youth Performance Manager, shares his experience from the event:
“Welcome to Wing Ding” regatta chairman Geoff Headington heralded to a room full of former windsurfers, kiters, dinghy sailors, paddlers and surfers who assembled at St. Francis Yacht Club recently for three days of wing foil racing that included slalom, course and a long-distance race from Crissy Field to Berkeley Pier and back.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Scuttlebutt-Banner-Ad-TC.png)
After logging 150 miles of WingFoil racing, I now find myself at San Francisco airport on Sunday night, in a state of euphoria and exhaustion that might make me look like I’ve spent too much time on Haight-Ashbury. But the truth is, I just attended an almost spiritual reunion of sailing’s purest vanguards.
This event attracted WingFoilers from all corners – California, Washington, Hawaii, Mexico, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Florida, Puerto Rico. Boys and girls, men and women, from ages 12 to 68 years spent the weekend chasing one of St Francis’ favorite sons, Johnny Heineken, around the city front.
When I first came to San Francisco in 1998 for the U.S. Windsurfing Nationals, I was immediately blown away by the level of sailing, harshness of condition, and camaraderie in the parking lot of Crissy Field. Twenty-six years later not much has changed. The sailing zeitgeist continues, and the Bay remains a crucible for innovation, having birthed kite racing, kite foiling, windsurf foiling, and now WingFoiling.
My host and longtime windsurfing campaigner and friend, Steve Bodner, commented that if it weren’t for the yachts ripping across the City Front during the 34th America’s Cup, we wouldn’t have the WingFoil races we did today. Who’s to say exactly which factors led us to this moment, but the fact remains that San Francisco has always been the heart of innovation in our sport.
Everything we believe sport can do for us as humans; uniting young and old, pushing ourselves beyond our current capabilities, testing the mind and body, the joy and hardship of processing your own performance—these things and more were felt by all competitors this weekend.
What strikes me as particularly satisfying about the 2024 Wing Ding is how it brought together people from all different age groups and various parts of our extended sailing family, for example:
Legendary designer Pete Melvin and his son James; Windsurfing Hall of Famer Nevin Sayre and his son Rasmus; regatta host Geoff Headington and his son Morgan; 4x SUP World Champion Fiona Wylde brought a crew of water-women from Hood River; former Stanford Sailing Captain, Yuri Namikawa, and husband Cole Hatton both competed; F4 founder Al Meril and son Kai; WindClub Hawaii showed up with van full of gear and a posse of under 19 foilers that lit up the water; and the list goes on.
I’ve been to hundreds of awards ceremonies and St. Francis continues to deliver great food, raucous laughter, and an environment for building strong friendships. Many thanks to the club members and leaders who continue to support our slice of the sailing community.
As the sailing world tackles issues of participation, representation, and enjoyment the phrase “back in my day” reveals a growing divide between generations. My own catalog of sepia-toned memories from yesteryear continue to call me back to the water.
For those who don’t consider these Wing Dinging highfliers true “sailors,” that’s fine. The fact remains that whatever barriers hold us back, a bunch of sailors from every corner accumulated nearly 10,000 miles of buoy racing in San Francisco Bay.
Photos: https://usst.photoshelter.com/galleries/C0000cETlicxfMoA/2024-U-S-WingFoil-Championship
![st francis yacht club youth sailing comment banner](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/scuttlebutt-leave-a-comment.jpg)
Tags: Phil Muller , US WingFoil Championship , wingfoil
Related Posts
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-08-14_11-06-56-290x166.jpg)
Can we choose rules to ignore? →
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Wingfoil_Champs_day_2_SImoneStaff-060-290x166.jpg)
![](http://gu.isilkul.online/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.jpg)
US WingFoil Championship →
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2024-06-13_07-25-02-290x166.jpg)
First-ever US WingFoil Championship →
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Arendals-Seilforening-to-Host-X-15-Class-Wingfoil-Regatta-Norway-PH-Luca-Piana-290x166.jpg)
The next frontier: one design wingfoil →
© 2024 Scuttlebutt Sailing News. Inbox Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. made by VSSL Agency .
- Privacy Statement
- Advertise With Us
Get Your Sailing News Fix!
Your download by email.
- Your Name...
- Your Email... *
- Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/wp-content/plugins/arscode-ninja-popups/themes/newtheme1/img/lock.png)
Home News 2024 U.S. WingFoil Championship Perspective from Phil Muller
2024 U.S. WingFoil Championship Perspective from Phil Muller
From Phil Muller, US Sailing’s Youth Performance Manager:
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Wingfoil_Champs_day_2_SImoneStaff-054-300x200.jpg)
After logging 150 miles of WingFoil racing, I now find myself at San Francisco airport on Sunday night, in a state of euphoria and exhaustion that might make me look like I’ve spent too much time on Haight-Ashbury. But the truth is, I just attended an almost spiritual reunion of sailing’s purest vanguards.
This event attracted WingFoilers from all corners – California, Washington, Hawaii, Mexico, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Florida, Puerto Rico. Boys and girls, men and women , from ages 12 to 68 years spent the weekend chasing one of St Francis’ favorite sons, Johnny Heineken, around the city front.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Wingfoil_Champs_day_1_SImoneStaff-012-200x300.jpg)
My host and longtime windsurfing campaigner and friend, Steve Bodner, commented that if it weren’t for the AC72s ripping across the City Front during the 34th America’s Cup, we wouldn’t have the WingFoil races we did today. Who’s to say exactly which factors led us to this moment, but the fact remains that San Francisco has always been the heart of innovation in our sport.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Wingfoil_Champs_day_2_SImoneStaff-026-300x200.jpg)
What strikes me as particularly satisfying about the 2024 Wing Ding is how it brought together people from all different age groups and various parts of our extended sailing family, for example:
Legendary designer Pete Melvin and his son James; Windsurfing Hall of Famer Nevin Sayre and his son Rasmus; regatta host Geoff Headington and his son Morgan; 4x SUP World Champion Fiona Wylde brought a crew of water-women from Hood River; former Stanford Sailing Captain, Yuri Namikawa, and husband Cole Hatton both competed; F4 founder Al Meril and son Kai; WindClub Hawaii showed up with van full of gear and a posse of under 19 foilers that lit up the water; and the list goes on.
![st francis yacht club youth sailing](https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Wingfoil_Champs_day_2_SImoneStaff-056-200x300.jpg)
As the sailing world tackles issues of participation, representation, and enjoyment the phrase “back in my day” reveals a growing divide between generations. My own catalog of sepia-toned memories from yesteryear continue to call me back to the water. For those who don’t consider these Wing Dinging highfliers true “sailors,” that’s fine. The fact remains that whatever barriers hold us back, a bunch of sailors from every corner accumulated nearly 10,000 miles of buoy racing in San Francisco Bay this weekend.
Copyright ©2018-2024 United States Sailing Association. All rights reserved. US Sailing is a 501(c)3 organization. Website designed & developed by Design Principles, Inc. -->
![](http://gu.isilkul.online/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.jpg)
IMAGES
COMMENTS
Youth Sailing . They say if you learn to sail on San Francisco Bay, you can sail anywhere. Generations of St. Francis Yacht Club sailors would agree. Our professional coaching staff offers youth sailing opportunities year-round with programs at the City clubhouse and summer sailing camps on Tinsley Island. Instruction is available for all skill ...
Our beginning classes cover rigging, points of sail, capsizing, tacking, gybing and safety. Younger sailors will sail single or double-handed in RS Teras and the older group will sail double-handed boats such as RS Fevas and FJs. learn more. ST. FRANCIS YACHT CLUB. 700 Marina Boulevard San Francisco, CA 94123. T: 415-563-6363.
Learn to Sail Keelboats. St. Francis Yacht Club owns a fleet of 13 J/22s perfect for four-person crews. Learn the basics of sailing a keelboat, including skippering, trimming, mast position and being the bow person. You will be paired up with other sailors of your ability level and some of the boats will have a coach onboard.
This once-in-a-lifetime sleepaway sailing camp experience is designed for beginner and intermediate sailors. Sailors will spend the week learning to sail RS Teras, RS Quests, Lasers and Windsurfers. Other camp activities and games will include kayaking, paddle boarding, land games and pool time.Tinsley Island camp runs Monday through Friday.
Host Spotlight: St. Francis Yacht Club. Located in the heart of San Francisco, the St. Francis Yacht Club (StFYC) is one of the premier sailing clubs in the United States and a leader in WingFoiling. Established in 1927, the club has grown to become a beacon for sailors from around the world, known for its rich history, stunning location, and ...
The St. Francis Sailing Foundation, a 501c (3) charitable organization with TIN 94-2956977, has been created to encourage, promote, and enhance the sport of sailing. It provides support to young sailors just beginning their sailing careers, competitive sailors as they advance, and elite sailors seeking world class competition.
by St. Francis Yacht Club Competitors were treated to perfect sailing conditions Posted on 11 Jun Double the Wins at Offshore Doubles Race by St. Francis Yacht Club St. Francis Yacht Club & Yacht Racing Association of San Francisco Bay team up Posted on 20 May J/105 Women's Invitational Regatta a success by J/Boats Arbitrage team wins three ...
The St. Francis Yacht Club is a private sailing club located in San Francisco. History. Founded in 1927, the Saint Francis Yacht Club (StFYC) was formed when some of the members of the San Francisco Yacht Club decided to move their clubhouse from Sausalito to Belvedere, California to escape the rapidly growing commercial activity of Sausalito ...
ICOYC News. Offering a bigger experience of sailing. By Kimball Livingston, St. Francis Yacht Club. When Kimball Livingston was the 2016 Commodore of St. Francis Yacht Club he led an initiative that changed the focus of his club's youth program. Now with the title of Staff Commodore Ambassador to Youth Sailing\, he offers this update.
J/22 Program. The J/22 fleet, owned by the St Francis Sailing Foundation and maintained by the St Francis Yacht Club, is much beloved and well-utilized. The fleet started with ten boats christened in 2010 and in 2023, an additional three boats were added to the fleet for a total of 13 boats. Boat equality is a fundamental requirement in both ...
St. Francis Yacht Club, San Francisco, CA. 6,675 likes · 89 talking about this. Our mission is to serve as the inspirational center of boating activities regionally and a leader of yachting...
Sailing Classes & Camps. Cityfront Sailing Camp; Tinsley Island Summer Sailing Camp; Beginner Sailing; Learn to Race; Intermediate C420 Sailing; C420 Race Clinics; J/22 Keelboat Sailing; Friday Open Sailing; Wingfoiling Classes; Youth Race Teams; High School Sailing; Calendar; Archive. Library; Collections; Club Trophies; Mainsheet Archive
St. Francis Yacht Club, located on the shores of San Francisco Bay, plays host to over 150 days of racing a year, in addition to dozens of club events. We also host hundreds of private events ...
Founded in 1927, St. Francis Yacht Club is widely regarded as one of the top racing venues in the country. In addition to enjoying a worldwide reputation for on-water and in-club excellence ...
Phil Muller, US Sailing's Youth Performance Manager, ... paddlers and surfers who assembled at St. Francis Yacht Club recently for three days of wing foil racing that included slalom, course and ...
All camps and courses are open to members and non-members alike. Scholarships are available. Contact Sailing Director Brent Harrill for more information at 415-820-3729; [email protected]. ST. FRANCIS YACHT CLUB. 700 Marina Boulevard San Francisco, CA 94123. T: 415-563-6363.
From Phil Muller, US Sailing's Youth Performance Manager: "Welcome to Wing Ding" regatta chairman Geoff Headington heralded to a room full of former windsurfers, kiters, dinghy sailors, paddlers and surfers who assembled at St. Francis Yacht Club recently for three days of wing foil racing that included slalom, course and a long-distance race from Crissy […]
If St Francis YC has to cancel courses, fees will be credited or refunded. All camps and courses are open to members and non-members alike. Scholarships are available. Contact Sailing Director Brent Harrill for more information at 415-820-3729; [email protected]. ST. FRANCIS YACHT CLUB. 700 Marina Boulevard San Francisco, CA 94123.
Youth Sailing. For more than 60 years, San Francisco Yacht Club's youth sailing program has been dedicated to coaching and empowering the next generation of Bay Area competitors and sailing enthusiasts. The SFYC offers a spectrum of individual and team training programs for kids from grade school through high school, and more than 300 young ...
St Francis Yacht Club. Beginner Sailing: Teras, Fevas and FJs. ... The FJ is the boat sailed by our High School Sailing teams. This course should likely be taken several times before the sailor is ready to advance to "Learn to Race". 2024 Fall Schedule. Saturday Morning - Beginning Sailing:
10 : 2024 San Francisco Bay Challenge : 2024 Summer Wingding U.S. Wingfoil Championship : Berkeley Yacht Club Cruise In : Cruise Group Tour of Stockton, USS Lucid, Haggin Museum & Lunch
Race Committee. The St. Francis Yacht Club Race Committee is renowned for running some of the best sailboat, kiting and windsurfing races in the world. Comprised of over 200 member and non-member volunteers, our Race Committee's dedication to the sport shows in the 140+ days they spend on the water each year.
St Francis Yacht Club. You Must Login to View this Page. Username: