The Chapala Yacht Club has been buzzing with activity over the Easter holidays as a select bunch of youngsters takes advantage of their vacation time to pick up the pace of training for Mexico’s 2012 season of major sailing competitions.
The club is the venue for the Chapala’s Escuela de Vela, established last fall as Jalisco’s official sailboat racing training camp, operating under the auspices of the State Sports Commission (CODE) and its municipal counterpart COMUDE.
The team is coached by Jorge Tito Perez del Castillo, a Cuban by birth and lifelong sailor who has traveled the world both as a champion competitor and highly esteemed instructor.
Taking the helm of the sailing school from the outset, Perez now has 39 promising young students under his wing. While most are progeny of well-heeled Guadalajara families that frequent the Club de Yates on weekends, 13 of his trainees are local kids with little previous exposure to the elite sport. With COMUDE actively developing new recruits, Perez projects that by next year as much as 80 percent of enrollees will come from the lakeside area.
“Sailing is a really fun sport,” the fair-haired youngster remarks. “When I’m about to take a big wave, I get tickles in my tummy. It’s sort of like riding a roller coaster. I control the nerves by concentrating on the things I have to do.”
Perez expects Vazquez will again sail to victory in this year’s junior Olympic boating contest, set for May 12 to 17 in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit. In fact, he has high hopes that Team Jalisco will rack up as many as 10 medals, with several of his Chapala-born beginners coming back as winners.