Fusion 15's in Midland Bay Sailing Club School

Since 2003, the Fusion 15 has been a vital part of Midland Sailing Club's sailing school and Monday-night dinghy racing program. We now have nine Fusions, which we use for Bronze instruction as well as Learn to Race, but they're also popular enough that White Sail kids want to use them and sometimes get the chance.

Over the last few years, the volunteer board of the club sailing school has made a concerted effort to develop the program into what we believe to be one of the most successful in Ontario. Participation rates have just about doubled and we enjoy strong repeat business and word-of-mouth endorsement. Last year, despite the severe recession, we set attendance records, and had to turn away students in several sessions. The choice of the Fusion 15 as an instruction boat in my mind has been a critical component of the program's growth in quality and quantity.

Kids want to sail something new and exciting, not the cramped and archaic boat their mom and dad (or grandma and granddad) learned to sail in. The Fusion 15 is full of innovations and has great "curb appeal". Getting the chance to sail one every day is a great motivator for kids to move up through White sail and come back to do Bronze. We don't run an elite racing program, and we're not interested in the expense and maintenance issues of a design like a 29er. The Fusion 15 is exciting to sail, user-friendly, and provides plenty of challenges. We also use it for our annual high-school regatta and the local Burt-Gerrans youth regatta. It's easy for kids to get up to speed on how to sail a Fusion 15. And they don't mind dumping them because of the self-draining cockpit. On hot days, it's all we can do to stop kids in the sailing school from dumping them, over and over again.

One of the Fusion 15's great assets is its additional role in Monday-night club racing. We encourage our Bronze students to come out on Mondays and join club members in racing the Fusions. Members are allowed to sign out these club-owned Fusions, and this has proved to be very popular. A lot of keelboaters who race on Wednesday night have gotten back into dinghy racing this way, and this has given the club an injection of fresh on-water activity. The Fusion 15 is a robust design and we have not experienced maintenance issues by making it available for club members as well. I can't think of another instruction boat purchased for youths that would be so eagerly used by adult members. Any community club looking for a design that can meet the needs of adult sailors in a shared fleet should be considering the Fusion.

Douglas Hunter
Member, Friends of the Sailing School
Midland Bay Sailing Club