The goal of Switzerland-based Ocean Youth Sailing is to teach kids and young adults about the environment and sailing on the ocean. Their two-hulled floating classroom/dormitory was built by students who learned the arts of composite boat building. Started in 2014 with 30 youth sailors, the group now has over 300 teenagers and young adults involved. UK Sailmakers X-Drive sails met their performance and durability needs. We are happy to be their sailmaker.
“We wanted our youth to acquire a strong sense of responsibility and teamwork as well as gain hands-on ocean sailing experience. To accomplish that, we started building our catamaran from scratch,” said Lukas Ruppen, Head of Construction and Operation.
The group photo was taken by Fiona and the rest by Nicola.
It took three years, from 2016-2019 to build the Schionning Arrow 1360 (a 45-foot catamaran) in Switzerland. More than 150 teenagers and young adults dedicated a total of approximately 6,500 hours of volunteer work. While doing so, they were being guided by expert boat builders who were also association members. In 2020, the boat was transported to the Netherlands to start its first season.
For the sails, OYS worked with UK Sailmakers and local Lake Geneva Sailmaker Max Gigli from XM-Marine. The Schionning catamaran is a high-performance boat that will be sailed by many different young sailors with a variety of experience levels. To be able to sail with high-performance, durable and affordable sails, OYS chose UK Sailmakers’ X-Drive sails. “These sails are robust so they will give us seasons of excellent performance, and they are also very fast,” said OYS’s Nicola Möckli. “After more 2000 miles of sailing, we are very, very happy with how our X-Drive sails are still performing so well and how they are holding up. The new sails are living up to all our expectations.”
Many thanks to our sponsors UK Sailmakers, Karver Sailing and Oceanvolt!”Find out more at: http://oceanyouthsailing.com
