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| Sailing Academy Attracts International Students |
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| 13.11.08 |
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| Macleans College, in conjunction with the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, offers recreational sailing for international students. |
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| The programme is growing in popularity and recently 19 students from overseas have been involved in sailing around the attractive Waitemata Harbour. Students visit a number of islands, learn sailing skills, and have fun with other students from various parts of the world. |
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| The photos were taken at the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club as the group prepared for an afternoon’s sailing in J26 yachts. The day was warm, sunny with a light breeze. |
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| Here are some responses from students from Germany. |
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| Hans Christoph Madelung |
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| On the Macleans’ homepage is an article about a sailing course for internationals. I thought that’s a good opportunity to have fun with other internationals. |
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| Then when the course started I saw that we have very good and professional coaches and that we sailed on well-cared for boats. |
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| Our school boats are the J24 keelboats. That means the boats are 24 feet long and around six feet wide. The keel has a weight of 200kg what means it's nearly impossible for the boat to tip over. |
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| Nineteen students took part on this course. For the best chance to learn sailing properly we went into groups with four people. So we had five groups and five boats. |
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| In the first few lessons we learned to sail. That means we had to learn the different parts of the boat and how to steer a boat. |
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| After we learnt how to sail, we were ready for a few trips to the islands around Auckland. We went to Rangitoto Island, Motuihe Island and to the Auckland Harbour Bridge. |
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| I had fun with my group and I can say that I would take part on this course again. A few years ago I had the chance to make the Catamaran licence. The Catamaran is a very fast boat and is more complicated to sail that a J24 because it's so much faster. |
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| A J24 has a top speed of 6 knots and the Cat is easily over 12 knots. So, the course was for me a bit too slow but we still had a very good time. The atmosphere was very relaxing and friendly. |
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| And all who want to sail more are invited to become a crew member for the Tuesday club sail. |
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| Julia van Berck |
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| I don’t want to leave New Zealand! New Zealand is so beautiful. Everyone is unbelievably friendly, the landscape is wonderful and incomparable with anything else I have ever seen in my whole life. You have always a nice view and even the weather is good and it’s nice to be outside. |
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| I went sailing with a huge group of internationals and we had a great time. We had two courses every week. Every course was five hours long and most of the time we were on the water. |
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| Every crew had about three to five students and one coach. We often had wonderful weather for sailing. No clouds and sun, sun, sun. It was just perfect. |
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| In the first lessons, we did a little bit of theory and after that we practised on the water. We learned what everything is called on a boat and how we have to use it, what the wind tells us about the sailing direction and how we can make different manoeuvres. |
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| After that, we did a few day trips to different islands and had lunch there. It was always a lot of fun and the last trip we did on our own without the coach. He was in a motor-boat beside us and could help if something happened. But everything went well and they were very proud of us. We were proud too. |
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| Amelie Hambrecht |
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| A great thing that Macleans College offers international students like me is a sailing course which takes place in the nearby sailing club called Bucklands Beach Yacht Club. |
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| There we learn how to sail in less than five weeks. So now, at the end of the course, we are able to sail by ourselves. |
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| That means there are three to four students on one boat and each boat has one coach. Actually, we are 19 international students (from Finland, Italy, Switzerland and Germany) so we are on five sailing boats. These are seven metres long and from the top to the keel we have to know the name of every |
| single part of the boat. Although it might sound hard to learn all these things in such a short time it’s not that difficult and as soon as you enjoy being out on the water on one of these boats you get keen to learn more about sailing. |
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| We are already good enough to sail on our own while our coach is right next to us on a motorboat. I’m so happy that I’ve done this course because it’s just such a wonderful feeling to be out on the water working together as a team. |
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| Johannes van Roessel |
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| I came to New Zealand in July 2008. My major ambition was to learn English and to see the other side of the world. |
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| The wide range of co-curricular is great. The thing I enjoyed most was the sailing course for international students. It was good fun. We learned sailing within four days and sailed to some of the islands around Auckland. |
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| The coaches from the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club did a good job by making the learning process as easy as possible. |
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