Sailing schools in Sohar, Salalah and Khasab still part of Oman Sail plans

Muscat: Continuing with their main objective of re-connecting the Omani youth with the Sultanate’s rich maritime history and to spread the sport of sailing across the country, the Oman Sail are going ahead with their plans to establish more sailing schools in the near future.
Speaking to Times Sport on the sidelines of an event organised to announce Omantel’s decision to extend their support to Oman Sail’s Youth Progammes, Oman Sail CEO David Graham revealed the sailing body’s existing plan to have three more sailing schools.
“It has always been our endeavour to promote the sport of sailing across the Sultanate, with the ultimate aim of having Omani representation at the Olympic Games by 2020,” the Oman Sail CEO said.
“Towards achieving that goal the entire Oman Sail team has already been working hard and with the support of Omantel we are also successfully running the Youth Programme.
“And we have also established four sailing schools which are not only helping us to introduce sailing to hundreds of children but also in grooming them for the future.
“We want to take sailing further across, into the other regions of the Sultanate and as part of that we are working on establishing three more sailing schools and all three will be the first to be established in those regions,” David Graham said.
Giving further details, he said: “We are planning one sailing school in Salalah, which will be first one in Dhofar region. Then another one in Khasab (in the Musandam region). And we are also planning one in Sohar.”
The three schools, as part of Oman Sail’s five-year plan for sailing schools, were originally planned for 2013 (Sohar), 2014 (Khasab) and 2015 (Salalah).
Once established, the number of Oman Sail’s sailing schools will go up to seven, adding to the four existing ones — Almouj Muscat Sailing School, Sur Sailing School, Al Musannah Sailing School and Marina Bander Al Rowdha Sailing School.
The Oman Sail chief, however, refused to set a time frame for starting the news schools.
“The plans are made. But first we will have to find the funding before putting our plans into action. Hopefully we will succeed soon so that we can start the process (of establishing the schools) at the earliest.”
True value
Speaking about the funding the Oman Sail has been receiving and the tangible returns the sponsors and the Sultanate have been getting, Oman Sail CEO said: “Oman Sail has been striving to raise the profile of the Sultanate. That has been one of our prime objectives.”
Quoting from a ‘true value report’ by KPMG, an internationally renowned auditing company, he said: “For every OMR 1 Oman Sail receives, it generates OMR 8 of value.”
“Our achievements in various fronts, whether hosting international events in the country, or exceeding in the international stage have contributed to raising the profile of the Sultanate.”
Recalling how Omantel had come on board in 2013 as the founding partner of youth programme and how the company became the title sponsor of the Omantel Youth Programme a year later, he also spoke about how Omantel benefited from the partnership with Oman Sail ‘providing a unique platform for product engagement’ through various events, ‘corporate engagement opportunities’ through international events and staff engagement activities.
Ultimate goal
Dravid Graham also talked about the need to raise the bar for the youth squad.
“Currently the youth squad are the top of the GCC and the next target is to succeed in Asia,” he said.
“So we need to raise the bar to achieve our ultimate goal of winning a sailing medal at the Olympics. The ambition is to qualify for the 2020 Olympics and win a medal soon after.”