The Next Wave: Avalon Yacht Club’s Family Night Caps Junior Sailing Program’s Season
It was an evening of prestigious awards and silly superlatives at the Avalon Yacht Club’s 2025 Family Night dinner, celebrating the end of summer and the conclusion of this year’s AYC Junior Sailing Program.
Parents and grandparents alike were in attendance Aug. 15 to cheer on the young sailors of the Avalon Yacht Club for this special tradition, and once they’re a part of this close-knit group, it’s hard for them not to come back year after year.
“Most of our kids stay here their whole lives,” says Youth Sailing chairman John Groskoph. “They start off in the juniors program and then become part of the instructor staff. Many go on to sail in college, and then hopefully they come back later in life. Many of the people here, the parents, the grandparents, all grew up in this club, so it becomes generational. It’s a very special thing.”
For the children and grandchildren of Avalon Yacht Club members, the junior summer program is a whirlwind sailing camp, consisting of two four-week sessions for children ages 7-16. The junior sailing program also includes an arts and crafts option for ages 5-6 as well as numerous races, regattas, parties, and more for kids of all ages.
Sailing classes over this two-month period range from a basic introduction to sailing, to advanced sailing competitions, all depending on age and skill level. Children ages 5-8 can begin to learn about sailing during their half-day sessions. The 5- and 6-year-olds in the arts and crafts program get to swim in the bay and learn water safety, while the 7- and 8-year-olds have the chance to set sail with experienced instructors who help them get their sea legs.
The sailing program truly hits high winds for sailors ages 8-16 when they can now take full-day sailing lessons in their Optimist, or Opti, training.
“There are a whole bunch of different classes,” says AYC general manager Joe Mendez. “There’s Green Fleets, Optis, Adventurer, Laser, Sunfish. A whole bunch of different groups are doing different lessons on the water and on the land every day.”
Opti training levels range from 1-5, from beginning with the basics of solo and partner sailing, to honing their sailboat racing skills and strategy.
“When they start solo sailing, some of them who are comfortable will travel with our race team every Thursday,” Commodore Michele Lynch says. “Our sailing program is very robust. A lot of other clubs in our area look to us on how to improve, what to add, and how to bring kids in. The kids start out in Green Fleet, which is fun and not that competitive, they race for prizes. When they’re older, if they’d like to, they can move up.”
The many sailboat levels to which students can move up include Optimist, Sunfish, Laser, and Club 420. This advanced sailing program culminates in multiple races and regattas throughout the summer. Yacht clubs across the Jersey Shore alternate hosting regattas, but the most coveted competition is the Mid-Atlantic Yacht Racing Association’s MAYRA Cup, won by Avalon for the second straight year.
Though racing is emphasized, the junior sailing program also offers an adventure class for students who don’t have a competitive nature. This specialized course is only available to more-seasoned sailors with at least three years of experience in the summer program. Rather than racing in teams, adventurers explore the back bays and open seas of the Jersey Shore while also learning about more specialized types of sailboats.
While the AYC Junior Sailing Program primarily focuses on learning, developing, and honing the skills of young sailors, the program encourages character development as well. “The focus is just as much on developing life skills, leadership, and critical thinking, as it is the actual sport itself,” Mendez says.
As Groskoph notes, “Sailing in general creates very independent, self-sufficient, and confident adults. We start them off in little boats, right here off the dock. When you’re 8 years old and you’re sailing your own boat, it doesn’t matter if they’re only going 20 feet off the dock, that is a huge confidence builder for a little kid. We love to see them transform right in front of our eyes, from shy little kids into very confident people.”
Lynch, whose two daughters were raised in the junior sailing program, says her children are who they are thanks to sailing: “My kids have learned confidence, independence, and public speaking, because often they have to speak at [events] like this, and they’re teaching the children. I think both of them really came out of their shells when they started sailing.”
Though the junior sailing program gets a large group of sailors-in-training each year, the club has plenty of instructors to keep up. “We get anywhere from 65 to 95 students in the program depending on the year and the session,” Mendez says. “I think we have roughly 16 instructors right now. We have a pretty high instructor-to-student ratio.”
AYC sailing instructors go through numerous training exercises, some of which include becoming professionally certified to teach sailing, as well as getting emergency medical training with local EMTs.
“Our instructors are probably trained at a higher level, we think, than some need to be, but we feel that it’s really important,” Mendez says.
“They all have to be lifeguard certified, they do the whole lifeguard CPR first-aid course,” says Lynch. “They’re US Sailing certified as well. Everyone always wears life jackets on the water. Even the instructors wear life jackets. We take safety very seriously.”
The in-depth safety training and advanced leadership skills that the sailing instructors have was critical early into this year’s second session of the Junior Sailing Program. In late July, during an Opti open-sea sailing lesson, AYC’s “What Exit” sailboat engine lost power in Townsend’s Inlet and crashed against the jetty.
Fortunately, the two instructors on board acted calmly and quickly by abandoning ship with all of their teenage students, and were rescued by another Avalon Yacht Club boat, as well as the Avalon Beach Patrol. Thanks to their efforts, all eight sailing students were safely brought to shore without any serious injuries reported. “They behaved exactly as they should have in that situation and put the health and welfare of the children ahead of anything else,” Mendez notes.
Though some might have seen the wreckage from that day and thought that the annual trip into the open ocean might be too dangerous, the AYC says otherwise.
“Many of the parents have told us, ‘Please don’t make [the open-ocean trip] go away. My kids saw a whale the day they went out,’” Mendez says. “That’s a thing they’ll never forget for the rest of their lives. Other kids need to be able to have that opportunity, too. Surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of parents – both those who had kids on the boat at the time as well as those who have done that trip themselves – have said, ‘Whatever you do, get another boat and keep doing it.’”
This summer, especially, the Avalon Yacht Club had plenty of reasons to celebrate. Each year, the junior commodore of the sailing program, along with his or her parents, is responsible for the planning and execution of many club parties and group activities throughout the summer.
“There’s a few events throughout the year,” Mendez says. “The parents mostly take on the workload of planning those events. They do a night out on the Miss Avalon Cruise, they do a day at the water park, they have deck parties, then we do a Junior Commodore Ball. It’s a spin-off of the regular Commodore’s Ball where the kids come, they dress nice, they have a nice dinner, and the parents come as well.”
But the final and most heartfelt celebration and culmination of the summer is the Family Night dinner. During the day, sailors took one last sail and returned back to the club just in time for dinner. After the kids finished their chicken fingers and parents drank their Dark ‘n’ Stormys, it was time for the awards ceremony. It began with Mendez presenting an award to the four sailing instructors involved in the July boat crash and rescue for their courage and bravery.
The ceremony continued with emcee and Lead Sailing Instructor Steve Kosloski giving sincere appreciation to members and passing the microphone to every junior sailing instructor. Each instructor presented superlative awards for their campers, ranging from “Most Improved” to “Sassiest Sailor” and “Rigging Rockstar.” Each member of the junior sailing program was also given a certificate of participation and an AYC-branded backpack.
Once each sailing group level got its moment in the spotlight, the commodores of the yacht club, dressed sharply in their all-white uniforms, presented racing awards to the sailors. These awards, which were too many to count, ranged from polished plaques to glistening trophies, all of which will be on display at the club for years to come.
“We have a set of perpetual silver trophies that, some of them, literally go back to the ’50s in the history of this club,” Groskoph says. “Some of the best sailors who have come through the program have won them.”
As the award ceremony came to an end, a roar of applause echoed through the room. Though the night was officially over, not everyone was ready to let it slip away.
“My favorite time of the night is at the end, no one wants to leave,” Groskoph says. “All of these kids are all hugging each other. There’s always a couple kids who are crying because they don’t want the summer to end, they don’t want to go home.
“When we see that, we know we’re doing something right.”