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Take your daughter to sea day
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Hike with your daughter
April 5th is the first annual Take Your Daughter to Sea Day!
It's a great weekend to do it with very few races, Opening Day is just around the corner and the Summer thermal winds haven't picked up yet. Getting kids out on the water is the absolute first step to ensuring that sailing continues to grow. If everyone makes a commitment to getting their kids sailing, there will never be a shortage of crew.
Look at the success that Take Your Daughter to Work Day has had. Women now comprise 46% of the total U.S. labor force according to the Department of Labor and are projected to account for 49% of the increase in total labor force growth between 2006 and 2016. We should be able to do that with sailing and the obvious first step is Take Your Daughter to Sea Day.
Of course, you don't have to go to sea. You can just sail around the Bay. If you're particularly funny, you can go by Olympic Circle Racing Mark "C" and call it Take Your Daughter to C Day. But kids don't always find that as funny as I do.
Enjoy the San Francisco weather with your daughter
It is important to have some sort of plan while sailing on this day. Plan something beyond the actual sailing to encourage fun. You can go dock at Angel Island, take a hike on one of the island's many trails, or play on the beach if the tide is low enough. There are always jellyfish in near shore in Ayala Cove (kids love that) so roll up your pants, take off your shoes and go beachcombing. Sail over to Sam's in Tiburon for lunch and enjoy their on-the-water deck. Take advantage of Pier 1½'s free docking and enjoy all that the Ferry Building has to offer (hint: the cupcakes at Miette are sensational). Or if you're in for an inch, go in for a nautical mile and head out to the Farallones to hopefully spy some Grey Whales while they migrate north to Alaska.
The important thing is that you're exposing the youngsters to *all* the joys of sailing. Not just the hull-speed beam reach with the boat heeled over like a unbalanced see-saw, but the joys of getting someplace magical while sailing.
Watch your daughter take your "Captain" title
I follow the First Rule of Sailing when I have kids on board: Never scare a child who might become a sailor. This is very important, I know people who have scarred their kids for life by forcing them to sail in uncomfortable conditions or jump across a seeming chasm from the boat to the dock. You don't have to do that.
If you keep the boat level (reef early), safe and fun, the kids will keep coming back. If the conditions warrant it, hand them the tiller. If your boat has a cabin, keep fun art supplies on board. Have a pirate hat handy. Let them yell "ahoy" to the other boats. Keep unhealthy snacks on board. Make it fun and keep it safe.
If this first annual Take Your Daughter to Sea Day works out, there are going to be a lot of excellent foredeck options in a few short years!
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