"My son is about 15 months old. I hope that by the time he's ready for an Opti, we have built an alternative cat program. I'm interested in positive discussions with anyone willing to help."


Optis! BLEH! We don't need no stinkin' prams for our catsailing kids!

If they are old enough and big enough to sail an Opti they can sail on Waves, 2 together. They start out learning how to work together as crew.

We've successfully been throwing 7-8 year olds on Hobie Waves for coming up on 3 years now. Once they've been on the Waves they turn their noses up at Optis and Sunfish.

There's 4 "commands" they need to know for you to coach them: push, pull, in, out. Push and pull is for the tiller and in and out is for the sheet.

Don't waste time talking on shore. Show them what you mean by push, pull, in and out. Then push them off. Some will instinctively figure things out on their own within minutes. The rest you spend your time going from boat to boat using the 4 simple commands they learned on shore.