On Wednesday, Dec 13, RapierMed donated a check for $25,000 to the Marine Rebuild Fund at the St. Thomas Yacht Club. Marine Rebuild Fund is the Virgin Islands Professional Charter Association’s (VIPCA’s) charity arm, which is fiscally sponsored by the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands. The money is earmarked for training dates for its 2023 Junior Sailing Summer Camp program set for July 2023, with registration beginning in January at:
https://vipca.org/junior-sailing-summer-camp/
The Junior Sailing Summer Camp is for Virgin Islands state-school students aged 13-17 years that includes two weeks of classroom training every morning learning parts of a boat, basics of sailing, navigation, safety, knots, racing techniques, weather and conditions, and in the afternoon practical sailing on IC24s and Hobie cats at the St. Thomas Yacht Club.
Instructors are graduates of the VIPCA Marine Apprenticeship, such as Kasheem Sexious and Benjamin Tshenda-Berry. They are both examples of graduates from VIPCA’s youth training programs succeeding in careers in the marine industry, and they shall both take their captains’ licenses in 2023.
Already in 2022, three VIPCA Marine Apprenticeship graduates have been awarded captain’s licenses, including Capt. Dontre’ Antoine (100t license), age 21 years; Capt. Javan Douglas (100t license), age 25 years; and Capt. Osayande Francis (50t license), age 24 years.
“It’s really my pleasure to be able to sponsor this program to allow kids that otherwise have no opportunity to sail, and really no experience on the water… and to hopefully start some of them on a career in watersports or in a career in the marine industry.” Said Dr. George Rapier, founder of RapierMed.
