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In February 1986, three boy scouts drowned in a small boat accident off an
outlying Virgin Islands cay while on a camping expedition. Not only did they lack
the necessary sea skills to handle a boating emergency, but they also were
unable to swim to safety on the nearby shoreline.
This tragic accident pointed out the astounding absence of any youth water
safety programs in the Territory. It provided impetus for Ron Sherwood, Dr. Ted
Cummins and members of the Rotary Club of St. Thomas II to initiate an effort to
train VI youth in basic seamanship and small craft handling. They contacted the
Virgin Islands Marine Advisory Service to join them in a cooperative effort to
organize and conduct the sea skills project, which later came to be known as the
Kids And The Sea (KATS).
Later that year Tom Gerker, who was living in St. John, contacted Ron Sherwood,
of the Rotary Club of St. Thomas II, inquired about what was required to put the
program on in St. John. To his amazement, Ron and members of his Rotary Club
supplied everything required to put on the program other than the kids and
volunteer instructors. Coral Bay, St. John was the perfect place to start the
second program. There was a large live aboard marine community with a strong
interest in giving back something to the people of St. John. This program rapidly
grew and is the oldest of the KATS programs in continuous operation.
In 1990, Tom moved from St. John to Tortola. Soon after arriving, he was
approached by businessmen from the local community headed by Albie Stewart.
Starting a program in the BVI would be a lot more complicated. Rowboats would
have to be built, gear and life jackets purchased, uniforms made, and a manual
put together. In St. John, Rotary had supplied all of this. A volunteer base had to
be assembled, and there was the issue of the kids. Educating local West Indian
kids had, from the Program's inception, been its major goal. But getting the local
St. Johnian kids involved had been challenging. Despite these many obstacles, in
the end, KATSBVI was started.
The BVI Yacht Club was selected to be the umbrella organization for KATSBVI.
Many of the early volunteers came the Yacht Club. Laurie Girdlestone was an
early ally and hand copied a revised manual on Peter Haycraft's high-speed
copier late in the evenings. Barbara Gerker started making friends and enlisting
their support. Dr. Ted Cummins, who had originally conceived of the idea of
KATS, assisted with having boats built in his native Barbados. With Jim Scott
and Tropical Shipping's assistance, they got the boats delivered to Tortola. Judy
Morgan did our original shirts and Ron Sherwood, delighted at the prospect of a
BVI program, assisted with getting shorts and belts from St. Thomas. By the
Spring of 1991 they had everything they needed except the kids. Tom promoted
the program heavily with all the service organizations and in the Press, but there
was no telling if any would show up.
With the efforts of the newly evolving volunteers, the Pub was chosen as the
location to hold the program and Stanley's in Cane Garden Bay agreed to allow
registration to take place there. That first Saturday 49 kids showed up to register.
28 of those children could swim well enough to save their lives. So the program,
which was designed for 24, grew to 28. That number worked well and remained
the target number for all future programs.
There were several people involved with that first year's program who became a
fundamental part of the program. One was a proud parent who was in the
background on that first registration day taking pictures, John Lewis. John was
always there for all his son Khalid's graduations, field trips and regattas. He
became an integral part of what KATS became and eventually agreed to be its
Chairman. Another person was an initially reluctant volunteer, Tony Edwards. He
agreed to help out with the first program but would not commit to more than 6 of
the 12 weeks. He and his wife Pam not only made it to all the 12 weeks that
year, but they are the only volunteers to have made it through all 15 sea skills
programs, often with perfect attendance.
A student in that first class, Brian Liverpool Jr, Brian went on to do all the KATS
programs and remained involved as an assistant instructor. After returning from
school, he became a full instructor and eventually was appointed the Director of
the Sea Skills program. In late 2004 Brian, an officer in the Rotaract Club of
Tortola, proposed that Rotaract adopt KATS and provide instructors for the Sea
Skills program. In April 2005 they did so, providing all but three of the program's
instructors. We look forward to a stronger future with this new generation of
volunteers.
The featured speaker at the first graduation ceremony, Deputy Chief Minister
Ralph T. O'Neal, became a great source of inspiration and encouragement for all
the volunteers in the program. He has attended nearly every graduation ceremony
KATS held ever since: Sea Skills, Sailing and Scuba, despite the fact that there
were often just the kids and only a handful of parents. In the middle years when
the program was struggling, he sat on our Board of Directors and gave us
assistance and advice, despite his very busy schedule as Chief Minister. He
became the first patron of the Chief Minister's Cup International Youth Regatta.
Following the first sea skills program, everyone started asking “what next”? With
the assistance and encouragement of the BVI Yacht Club, KATSAIL was started
in November of 1991. We assembled a small fleet of sunfish and lasers, of
varying degrees of seaworthiness and started teaching sailing at the old CSY
Marina in Baugher's Bay. It was an ideal facility to run the program from and in
1992 we moved the Sea Skills program there as well. The first run at KATSAIL
was very difficult. First the amount of equipment needed was far greater than the
Sea Skills program. Many of the first boats were old and tired to start off with. A
couple would routinely come back awash from having taken on so much water
while sailing. That, combined with the fact that our novice sailors would
occasionally have collisions on the racecourse, made boat maintenance a bit
overwhelming. There was no budget to fix anything, so it was always done with
volunteer labor and donated materials. Another was the fact that there was no
fixed time period for the program to run. It was a year round commitment of every
Saturday for those first couple of years. This burned out many volunteers and the
enthusiasm for this program waned.
In 1994 KATS started 2 new programs: KATSBOARDSAILING and KATSCUBA.
Jeremy Wright, from Boardsailing BVI, started and ran the program for several
years. He became an active member of the Board and used his seemingly
endless energy and enthusiasm to make many of our events a success.
KATSCUBA was organized and run by the BVI Dive Operators Association in
1994 and has run for 10 of the last 11 years. Joe Giacinto, Randy Kiel and
KATSCUBA Director Derrylyn Churchwell have been involved in all of these and
continue to try and attract local youth into the Sport. They have also been
instrumental in providing jobs for graduates who have wanted to continue on in
Industry.
With the donation of “Optiki”, a 37 foot Cheoy Lee yacht, KATS started in keel
boat sailing. Optiki was used to compete in the first St. Thomas Governor's Cup
Youth Regatta in 1993. But the boat was old and required a great deal of
maintenance. It was also not a good boat to teach sailing in. A great sea boat, it
was not a responsive or competitive racing vessel. It was decided that the J24
was a much more suitable boat for teaching and completing. So later that year
Optiki was sold and the money used to buy a used J24. Tropical Shipping
transported the boat to Tortola. Barclays Bank sponsored the boat and so it was
named “Barclaykats”. It soon became apparent that having one J24 wasn't very
good for training, as the kids had no one to compete with. So we began
searching for a second J24. We finally found a boat we could afford in St. Croix.
With the assistance of Tom Merrigan and Michael Hirst, we purchased “Road
Kill”, sailed her to Tortola and re-named her BarclaykatsII. Eventually we would
buy a 3rd J24, Jersey Devils, when the famed Stanton brothers retired from active
sailing. This would become CCT Boatphone KATS until it was converted to an
IC24.
One of the early crying needs we became aware of in our first KATS registration
was that of swimming education. Nearly half of the kids registered for the first
program could not swim well enough to save their lives. As badly as a program
was needed, the obstacles to running one seemed monumental. First we needed
trained instructors. Second we needed pools, and there were (and still are) not
any public swimming pools. Last, but certainly not least, we needed someone to
run this program. Finding the right person solved all the problems. Julie Overing,
the biologist for Conservation and Fisheries and KATS sea skills volunteer, was
that person. With her unique organizational skills, she was able to overcome all
the obstacles and start KATSWIM. The Board quickly recognized this as the
most important of all the programs and, as such, it was decided to pay the
instructors a stipend from the very beginning. Julie was followed as Director by an
equally talented group of women: Liane LeTendre, Jean Cook and most recently
Annie Gardner. Annie also acted throughout the years as an Water Safety
Instructor, teaching the instructors.
In 1993 the Rotary Club of St. Thomas II held an event they called the Governor's
Cup Youth Regatta under the patronage of Governor Alexander Farrelly. This
was, effectively, a KATS Olympics with sailing, rowing, knot tying and man
overboard drills. The first year KATSBVI fielded a team made up of Khalid Lewis,
Brian Liverpool, Vimbai Mutapha and Kamau Georges who walked away with a
bronze medal. It was great fun and BVIKATS sent a team every year. John Lewis
went over every year as a chaperone for the kids. At one of the events, we
observed how the initial reluctance to interact with kids from other teams would
melt away throughout the day and they would start to be making friends just as it
was time to leave at the end of the day. John commented on how great it would
be to have the kids get together for an entire weekend of racing and competition.
In 1996 the Governor's Cup was cancelled due to the devastation caused by the
passing of hurricanes Luis and Marilyn and it was never to start again.
The seeds of a new Regatta had been planted though. Seemingly impossible to
accomplish, John Lewis was going to see that it would happen. The new regatta
was named the Chief Minister's Cup, in honor or our Board Member and strong
supporter, Ralph T. O'Neal. The first Chief Minister's Cup International Youth
Regatta was scheduled for October 1998. Once again though, hurricanes foiled
our plans. It was decided that, if the Regatta was to be a success and to carry
on for many years to come, it had to be moved out of prime hurricane season. So
the event was re-scheduled for July 1999.
In 1995 we held a fund raiser that was the brainchild of Liane LeTendre called
KATS Karnival. It, like many of our events, grew to be much more grandiose than
originally envisaged thanks to the efforts of our many hard working volunteers.
Among the many things going on that day were sailing trips for the general public
on a variety of donated boats, including an island sloop. This was an introduction
for many people to sailing and attracted at least one more valuable volunteer to
our ranks, Patricia Morgan. With efforts of all the volunteers, particularly Liane
and Jeremy, the day turned out to be a great success, if not a very good fund
raiser.
In 1997, KATSBVI was invited to participate in the Celebrity Youth Regatta in St.
Thomas. We sent the team of Winston and Carolyn Blackett, Avi Parasram,
Liam Fitzgerald, Kai DeCastro and George Newlingward. They sailed on a boat
with Chris Law, who was ranked #5 in the world at that time.
In 1998 our KATSAIL team, made up primarily of the same team won 1st place in
the jib and main class at the BVI Spring Regatta. Light winds favored our J24 but
the team sailed consistently well in order to win the event. The team was
coached by a former KATS student, Earl James. Earl had gotten his first
exposure to the marine industries through KATS in St. John and had gone on to
become a sail maker and business owner at Nanny Cay.
In 1998 Chris Ghiorse, of Last Stop Sports, offered to restart the dinghy sailing
program. With 4 lasers from his fleet and 2 older boats from the early KATSAIL,
he started teaching sailing at Nanny Cay. The program was successful with the
kids but ended when Chris moved to the Moorings in 1991. Liane decided that
the program was too successful to let die and so, with Chris' fleet of boats,
moved it to West End. Typical of Liane, she threw all her energy into the
program, procuring a 40 foot trailer and permission from the Malones to put it on
the sand spit. She also enlisted the support of the West End Yacht who became
the main support of the program both from a human resource perspective as well
as monetarily. In 1991, with our aged fleet of Lasers on their last legs, Liane
petitioned the Board for money to buy a fleet of new boats. We took the proceeds
from the previous Chief Minister's Cups with some promised money from other
sources and purchase six new boats. The program grew steadily under Liane's
Directorship, but she had to step down in 2003 for personal and business
reasons. We were very fortunate to have Nels Hagenson, who stepped in and
continued the program until today.
Our program has been one made up of selfless sacrifice in the pursuit of our
mission statement: to promote the safety of children around and in the sea, open
the sea that surrounds us to our youth in terms of recreational enjoyment, and to
expose them to careers in the marine industries. We honor those volunteers in
this, our 15th year of Service to our Youth. Their efforts have contributed to a
drastic reduction in drowning and boating accidents since the program's
inception. We look forward to our next 15 years with our new generation of
volunteers. We ask for everyone's support of his or her endeavors.
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| KATS Receives Sportsmanship Award |
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