Coaching at Camp Tanamakoon

Launch Pad blog post by Vanessa Zufelt - guest instructor

After being taught as a kid to windsurf by my uncle Carl, from 2008 to 2013 I had a great fortune of teaching mostly beginner lessons at a the world renowned Jibe City windsurfing school on Bonaire.

Camp Tanamonkoon is 101 year old a boat access girls camp seeped in tradition. On Tuesday and Wednesday, June 23/24 my uncle and I had an absolutely wonderful time teaching soon to be windsurfing instructors Marlow and Georgia at this excellent camp in pristine Algonquin Park.

We had a short but extremely successful time teaching them how to give land based and water based instruction to young female campers. Having taught windsurfing for many years myself, as well as Sail Canada certified instructor Carl with his many years of windsurfing coaching experience, meant that we had so many wonderful tips and tricks to pass along to this next generation.

Major topics we covered were things like making the 7 position with their bodies and their feet, the safe-T position with the board and sail when uphauling, the 2 fingers on the boom sheeting in so the back hand lets go first when overpowered. The camp's simulator got an upgrade with the foam "feet" outlines that we added. These tips were all extremely helpful means of educating the motivated young instructors who will be running the windsurfing program for the coming summer months.

The gear at the camp was all in really great shape. Many thanks to Tom and Reet Mae who taught their excellent "Sail the Rainbow" windsurfing course there over the years and maintained and improved the gear. It was fun giving the girls their certificates and Sail the Rainbow hats. We are pretty confident that we will be coming back here year after year to do this wonderful program. It is exciting to see the windsurfing sport continue to inspire new windsurfers at summer camps in Ontario.

It was especially fun for me to somewhat relive what it was like to be a 20 year-old teaching windsurfing in seeing two young women stepping into their instructor roles confidently and enthusiastically. We got them sailing upwind, tacking and jibing consistently and they both are absolute naturals.

It’s going to be a great summer! Cheers, Vanessa.