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Writer's pictureOliver Silen

Sailing is so much more than sailing

Updated: Jul 4, 2023

Throw yourself into the unknown!


I’ve found that is the time when you learn the most. When you just decide to do something even though you don’t have it planned to the T.


The trust that my parents put in me when they sent me on sailing trips around Europe as a young teenager really helped me become independent and to always look for solutions rather than problems.


How sailing thought me to stay calm and solve problems

One of the wilder stories I have is from when me and my older brother Victor were sent alone to France for a sailing competition when we were just 14 and 18 years old. It was 2014 so we had a printed out travel plan from Nice airport to the small village of Cavalaire. We were to take a bus to Fréjus, switch to another bus and finally take a taxi from Grimaud. We were approaching Grimaud and tried to call a taxi with our limited French skills. After a few unsuccessful attempts we asked the bus driver for help. He tried multiple different companies but seemed to have no luck.


He then told us to go to the nearby bar/restaurant and ask them to call a taxi for us. We asked in the bar and got the reply “there is no”😵. Would have been easy to panic but the one thing I remember Victor saying is: “Well, it’s warm outdoors so we can sleep out here if we need to, no stress” 😅.


We ended up getting a cab (if however a little shady) and got to Cavalaire for a good competition.


Oh did I mention that we only had a one-way ticket? Two days before we were supposed to go home our dad cracked the code for how to get us home at a reasonable price. We ended up hitching a ride from Cavalaire to Milan with the Estonian team, flew to Tallinn and took the ferry to Helsinki.


Trips like this really teach you problem solving, perseverance and creates lifelong memories.


Start your next adventure by signing up to a sailing course in August and September

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