More than 24,000 young sailors from the DSV clubs belong to the sailing youth. In addition, there are young adults up to the age of 27. This is the target group of the Seglerjugend. Together, the volunteers organise the German Youth Championships, international youth meetings and the biennial youth sailors' meeting, to which young people and juniors from all DSV member clubs are invited.
Furthermore, Jonathan Koch, the honorary chairman of the sailing youth, and his colleagues in the DSV are committed to ensuring that the concerns and problems of the future of sailing are heard. Koch is a member of the DSV Executive Committee with his post as Youth Chairman, to which he was elected in February 2023 at the 25th Youth Sailing Meeting. He officially bears the title of "Vice President with the Youth Division (Youth Chairman)"; Timo Haß from the Munich rowing and sailing club "Bayern" previously held this position for a total of twelve years.
Koch was elected in February 2023 at the age of 28 as the youngest member of the Executive Committee in the association's 136-year history. Originally from the south, his home club is the Bodensee-Yacht-Club Überlingen. He sails for the club in the German Sailing League and is also active in eSailing. In the latter, he even secured the title of German champion in 2021 under the alias name "Roxyjoni".
Sailing Youth Roadshow
The "Sailing on site" initiative - Sailing Youth Roadshow" is designed to get children and young people throughout Germany interested in sailing. This is a taster sailing package aimed at cities, local authorities, schools and clubs. During the roadshow, a team comes to the respective organiser together with dinghies and surfboards. "We want to get as many children as possible into a boat, even if they have had no contact with sailing," says Koch, explaining the aim of the Germany-wide programme. Afterwards, the children and young people would have the option of joining a club and sticking with it or not. "I hope that children will develop an understanding for our sport, even if it's not the right thing for them," says Koch. He wants to counteract the misconception that sailing is always seen as elitist.
International youth exchange with Israeli sailors
This year's Young Europeans Sailing (YES) regatta off Kiel saw the first ever German-Israeli youth exchange programme. Eight sailors each from the Ilca-6 class from the DSV and the Israeli Sailing Association (ISA) took part. For eight days, they went on excursions together, improved their language skills and, of course, sailed. The event was also supported by the Coordination Centre for German-Israeli Youth Exchange (ConAct). "As someone who has lived abroad (Brussels; editor's note.) and works on EU issues," says Koch about the programmes co-organised by the young sailors.
3 questions for Jonathan Koch
YACHT: What is your goal as Chairman of the Young Sailors' Association?
Jonathan Koch: I am primarily interested in promoting the sport of sailing. One way of doing this is by generating new sailors through the roadshow. But we are also trying to promote voluntary work because we realise that the clubs and race officials are facing problems with recruiting young people. We are thinking about how we can create measures to get more young people interested in volunteering.
What challenges do sailing and young sailors face?
Especially at the age when people start training or going to university, we see that we lose many sailors for the time being. If the young adults no longer have any connection to sailing in the cities where they are studying because there is no club or lake, there is a risk that their interest in sailing will wane. That's why we try to get young people and young adults of this age interested in sailing, for example at the Commodore Cup.
Once the enthusiasm for sailing has been awakened, is there a further offer from the sailing youth?
In this case, the opportunity to gain further experience in the ORC offshore sector as part of the "Be part of the crew" placement programme comes into play. This has arisen from the fact that the crews of larger ships have repeatedly complained about a lack of new recruits. However, it is also difficult for young people to join such crews, and this is where we mediate and bring ships and young people together. If it suits both sides and they have sailed a good regatta together, for example, there is of course the possibility that the ship will gain a permanent crew member.
