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A Touch of ABYC in Macau

Posted 5 months, 15 days ago

A Touch of ABYC in Macau
The following article by Natalie Leung was published in the Macau Daily Times. It looks like ABYC have exported our Sailing School to Macau as Old ABYC'er, Jon Gailbraith has started a similar initiative there: Macau's only youth sailing academy has a "big dream" - to represent the SAR in the 2012 London Olympics. However, the goal could be challenged by a lack of sponsorship, which the principal said has hold back a lot of future sailors from developing the sport, and the small fact that Macau is not yet a member of the International Olympic Committee. Finishing his morning training session with six teenagers off the port of the Macau Yacht Club, Jon Galbraith, founder of the Macau Youth Sailing Association, told the Macau Daily Times the fact that the city had no sail training facility was "very much to his surprise" when he moved to the SAR with his wife Suzie, who accepted a job offer from Taipa's Sheng Kung Hui Primary School in August of last year. Currently giving the second training module to the 13 students aged between 11 and 16 and admitted from The International School of Macao (TIS) and Sheng Kung Hui Primary School when the course began in March, Mr Galbraith said a lot of children in Macau were keen to pick up the sport but could not afford the fees of 1,900 patacas per module for the six week course. According to this Royal Yachting Association (RYA) certified "yacht-master" who had also launched the Algoa Bay Development Sailing Academy in South Africa and worked at the Hanble School of Yachting in the UK, there was a very keen child called Akit in England who wanted to learn sailing so much but he was an orphan that no one could pay the tuition fees for him. "To somebody in the western world 100 pounds is nothing. But 1,900 patacas is a lot of money for people living in this area [Macau]. But I don't blame their parents, they just can't afford it," the 55-year-old principal said. In March when Mr Galbraith gave a presentation of his sailing course to 200 students at the Taipa primary school, he said 72 of them showed their interest afterwards but only five had returned the entry forms to the association eventually. Every module has a running cost of about 38,000 patacas. Considering the small number of intakes the association has, the Galbraiths have been covering the costs out of their own pockets. But for this married couple, running the academy was never a money-driven idea. "It's very important to give back to the sports," Mr Galbraith said, adding "children today are sailors tomorrow and we really need to start them young". Mr Galbraith was not in the sailing industry until 1994. Although he still managed to take home championships from different world renowned yacht races, he told the MDT a late starter could never obtain "the Olympics quality". "Without a sponsorship, by the time a person can afford to buy a yacht, he will already be in his 40s or 50s," the principal said. The 55-year-old already has a two-year plan in mind for his 13 students whose parents are either expatriates with western origins or Macanese. Mr Galbraith said he wanted to train 16-year-old Kyle to be the assistant instructor by the time he reaches 18. "It is like a pyramid from within, only by doing this sailing can truly carry on in Macau," he added. Full Story »

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