Sailing Center

Water sports - Goyave

Located on Boulevard Delgrès, adjacent to the port, the “Voiles et Loisirs 44“ (“Sailing and Recreation 44”) Sailing Center was created in 1991 by the Association d’Aide à l’Enfance et à l’Adolescence (AAEA, a charitable youth and children’s aid society). It is one of six vocational workshops managed by the C.A.V.A (Centre d’Adaptation à la Vie Active), a job-training center located in Abymes. The center is accredited by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and works in partnership with the Fédération Française de Voile (French Sailing Federation). It focuses primarily on young people between the ages of 16 and 21 who have dropped out of school and have been unable to take part a traditional occupational training program.
The Goyave Sailing Center has the specific mission of training youth for marine occupations to facilitate job placement. As part of this mission to expose young people to marine carpentry and traditional sailing techniques, the school took the initiative—with assistance from the commune and the financial support of the National Park under the “Pwojé pou laliwondaj“ program—to launch a project involving young people in the construction of a traditional “canot” dinghy, christened “La Ville de Goyave.” The goal is to share technical know-how in order to preserve and develop an ancestral skill that is part of Guadeloupe’s national heritage, deriving from it tangible economic benefits. Open to the public, individuals, students, groups, and works councils, the club offers training primarily in sailing dinghies, muti-hull craft, traditional sailboats, and windsurfing. Goyave native Rodolphe Sepho, age 27, who trained at the “Voiles et Loisirs 44” sailing school, participated in the 2014 Route du Rhum, the legendary single-handed transatlantic yacht race.