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Suzanne Bourke aboard the French Connection great interest in the courses Suzanne was to teach. There were 40 new Optimists and five new 4m RIBs, each with a new 15hp Yamaha outboard. Although she had been told she would also be training some instructors, there were none there, so the first week was taken up with training nine 18-year-old students as RIB handlers and assistant instructors. Language was always a problem, especially when things were happening quickly and an urgent instruction was called for. Even with a good, full-time interpreter it always took time to relay instructions quickly, so Suzanne instigated a system of whistles and hand signals to cut down delays. The children for the sailing course were selected from twelve middle schools and were generally between 11 and 14 years old. None of them had any previous boating or even water experience. On day one some of them had to be persuaded to go into the water and get their feet wet! The overall objective was to give each child five three- hour lessons based on Yachting New Zealand's Optimist level one course. There were 115 children altogether and they were divided into groups of around 15, with one group coming in the morning and another in the afternoon. The yacht club had no facilities apart from a clubhouse, and once the boats were taken out of their original packing cases they were stored in small marquees on the beach and launched straight into the shallow, warm water. With 15 boats and four RIBS being launched at the same time, one would think it would be a great period of confusion, but the Chinese children were very polite and attentive and Suzanne had already taught some 700 Kiwi children to sail, so she found this to be no great problem. As it was mid-summer in northeastern China the temperature was in the high 30 degrees Celsius with winds of five to seven knots, so there were no major dramas with capsizes. This exercise had to be introduced very carefully and in a fun way, so as not to frighten the children. With safety high on Suzanne's mind, the sailing area was kept in a marked and fairly shallow area, and the patrol boats were under strict instructions to bring any wayward boats back into the fold. Only one sailing day was lost to the weather when a typhoon swept over the peninsula. Luckily there was no serious local damage. Every Friday, Suzanne would organise a small regatta so the local officials could see the results of their funding, and the deputy mayor was very keen to come out in a RIB with her to November/December 2011 Professional Skipper 27 The Weihai Yacht Club and storage marquees on the beach experience things first-hand. For the government's benefit, I suspect, a television crew from Beijing spent a week filming for a children's television show. Yachting is not big in Weihai, and there is only one 13m yacht berthed there. The owner did not use her very much, as it was difficult for him to find crew. He was involved in organising the Optimist courses and Suzanne went out sailing with him and his friends and trained them to crew for him. He was absolutely delighted as he could now go racing, if he could find other boats to race against, that is! Some of the children spoke English and would go home and Suzanne had already taught some 700 Kiwi children to sail tell their parents about Suzanne. This led to several invitations to visit people's homes, which was a great break, as otherwise there were only five people she could really communicate with. With every sign and instruction written in Chinese, and with very few people speaking English, she had to be very careful not to stray from a known bus route! Snow on the beach signalled the approach of winter and the boats were stored back into their boxes and sheds, awaiting next summer for someone to come and instruct the local children again. Suzanne is considering making it a regular part of her annual programme. VIP.S69