Update from SaltSpring Island
You may recall that, in an initiative led by John Hassen, 4 Flying Fifteens were donated to SaltSpring Island Sailing Club in Canada last year.
The following is an update from Jillian Oakes from that club in response to emails from Michael Clarke (FFI Secretary), Simon Thompson (FFI Council Member) and Patrick Godbout (Communications Manager at Sail Canada).
Great to see that WA has helped to support a keen and growing fleet
Hi Patrick, great to hear from you. Yes we have a fleet of F15s on SaltSpring Island, BC. Just found another one last week and Lawrie Neish, who started this F15 fleet by towing several F15s from various points in Canada and USA through snow storms, kindly towed our most recent abandoned F15 home for us May 4th – a few days ago!! Lawrie started this some years ago and last year F15s went “viral” with 4 F15s donated to us from Australia thanks to John Hassen, AUS champ 2024 and a team of over 18 AUS F15 sailors, and Lily Grimshaw (Wanaka, NZ) and Jenny Price (Auckland, NZ) and their respective teams, us Canadian F15 enthusiasts have sailed in the 2024 NZ and 2025 AUS Nationals…very exciting and a most welcoming inclusive supportive community crazy about “dinghy with a keel” sailing!! In addition, John and his colleague Richard, Jenny and Lily have each travelled to SaltSpring Island to lead a full length F15 Coaching session with us ….absolutely AMAZING!!!!!!
We started last year on SaltSpring Island with about 12 gals sailing our growing fleet of F15s; this year the numbers of gals interested has exploded -using word of mouth only – no advertising – over 40 gals Registered for our weekly group sails. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 1:30 pm; Mondays and Thursdays at 5:30 pm. All ages and many beginner sailors, some have sailed for decades – all having a ton of fun on the water. Laughter and squeals of excitement drifting across the Ganges Harbour into the village are now the talk of the town. Each day this week two or three more gals (and a couple of guys) have asked to join the F15 team, by June 1st we expect we will have more than 60 F15 sailors using our F15s at least twice a week.
We are highly motivated to find any other F15s in the Canada/USA area looking for an extremely appreciative home on Salt Spring Island BC. We hear there is one in Nova Scotia area but have no contact info – have seen a photo on a unique trailer – a flat bed with a hole cut in the middle to accommodate the keel, but no hull number visible. We understand there was a fleet of 8 Flying 15s on the eastern coast 20 years ago…would love help in finding the contact info for these boats so they can get back into active sailing service. We are also looking for F15 ‘sisters’ in UK who might be interested in helping us ship a collection of abandoned F15s from UK to BC, Canada. Any help you can provide to work with us is most appreciated. This certainly has helped get dozens of women and their families involved in a most exciting adventure of sailing in F15s.
You are personally invited to drop in any time for a sail in one of our most treasured fleet of F15s – we absolutely love that they don’t flip over, and are pure simple sailing at its best – no electronics, no motors – just wind and water and fun. AMAZING if you could help us find contacts for the other F15s that are “lost” on North American continent. Meanwhile, we are hoping to shuip 4 more F15s from UK as John Hassen recommends that will be easier than from AUS.
Happy Sailing
Jill