Sailing with friends is the best! Winning, losing, long days, tough conditions on the water - all of that pales in comparison to the memories made sailing with friends. Many good times were had, and many lessons were learned. My son spent the summer in an opti (possibly his last summer in the opti, depending on growth), my daughter spent the summer as a junior sailing coach (her first year coaching), and I served as scorekeeper for the local regattas. The summer was too short, and it's been too long since I've posted to this blog! Suffice it to say, the summer was busy with a lot of junior sailing activities. I now understand that it is a great crossover for all sports and, really, for life. This is absolutely one of the things that I love about sailing - the ability to engage and sharpen the mind. This is the skill that he has transferred to hockey - understanding that every move has consequences and quickly calculating what those are and making a good choice. The better he gets at being able to understand his choices and to quickly calculate the foreseeable consequences, the better he becomes at racing. Sailing has taught my son that every move he makes on the water during a race is a choice and has consequences that affect the outcome of his race. The same sort of analysis applies to any problems he had with mark roundings, tacks, etc. If he got a bad start, for example, the coach asks him where he started on the line and why and what other choices he had and whether or not (in hindsight) those would have been better choices. After each race at a regatta, he sails over to his coach to discuss what happened during the race, with special emphasis on things that didn't go exactly right and could be tweaked. I didn't understand how sailing could possibly have anything to do with hockey, but my son's explanation made sense. On the way home, my son told me that the coach had a nice talk with him and complimented him on this ability, and then my son said words that surprised me - "It's all sailing." This, from a kid who has been playing hockey since he was five and who has spent many more weeks and months on the ice than on the water. My son's hockey coach recently told me how impressed he was with my 13 year old's ability to analyze a situation when he has the puck and in a split second calculate the odds of success on the different options that he has and select the best option. I think it's a great sport on so many levels, but what could it possibly crossover with? As is turns out, pretty much everything! I always thought of sailing in the "different" category.
Other sports are different enough to provide a nice break and develop other muscles and skills. For example, hockey and soccer are good crossover sports, i.e., one complements the other in terms of skill and strategy development. If you have a kid playing sports, then you are familiar with the concept of crossover sports.
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