19/08/2025
While the idea of attending and speaking at an Outdoor Education conference seemed like a leap for us, the reasons were very pragmatic: the presentation and the decision to submit an abstract came from reviewing last sailing season's experience, as we identified or encountered:
1. A potential gap in scientific evidence around the impact of sailing on health
Inspired by our conversations with Leman Hope, Making Waves, and our own experience, we provided an industry research question for Health Sciences Students at Swinburne University, which catalysed our work in exploring the available scientific evidence on the potential health impact of sailing. This started off with the “simple” question:
Can sailing positively impact the health, mental health or well-being of youth and adults?
2. A group of young people who aren't interested in racing
How could we develop and engage those who start sailing better than us and who don’t want yet another competitive activity, when the only accessible Yacht Club-based development pathway seems to be into racing?
3. Challenges
We thought that some of our challenges from the previous season might be similar to those faced by other outdoor education operators, including safety culture, volunteer burnout, and increasingly unpredictable weather. For this reason, we believed that gaining some insights from a specialised sector might be helpful to further improve our work.