Founding Aims
To provide facilities for sailboat sailing on the Great Lakes and for seamanship and navigation generally.- To improve the conditions of life for young people by giving them the opportunity to go to sea offshore, working a vessel under sail with their own hands.
- To foster the spirit of adventure latent in young people.
- To build a sense of responsibility among young people both for themselves and for the community in which they live
- To broaden horizons for learning, further education, naval homeland security and marine industry careers.
Indiana Sailing Association Inc. is run on the basis that young people sail, learn and work. Those who sail are active partners in a maritime enterprise.
Founding Principles
From the start, Indiana Sailing Association Inc. set out to give young people far more than just sailing experience. True, the young crews learn to play their part in sailing a larger vessel by taking turns at the tiller, changing sails, standing watches, cooking, docking, navigating, and so on. However, in this process of learning about the adventure of sailing on Lake Michigan, they go through a far more valuable experience.
The sea and the sailboat demand a degree of self-reliance, self-discipline, and self-confidence. Working on board in different wind and sea-states calls for and develops new social skills. Each crew member becomes an important part of a team. They work outside and sail in all weathers.
Lake Michigan is an immense body of water, an inland sea on Indiana’s doorstep. The lake provides real excitement and adventure ranging from practice races around marker buoys, to sailings along the Indiana coast, voyages to local yacht clubs, and the prospect of extended adventure sailing expeditions to Chicago and Michigan harbors.