ABSTRACT
Sail training as a term describes a variety of practices that are referred to by their advocates as youth sailing, youth work at sea, adventure sailing and sail training. Participants, practitioners and onlookers understand sail training as a maritime adventure strongly linked to a wider context of contemporary and historical seafaring. Sail training may provide a context for learning, but sailing and seamanship skills form only one part of the content of that learning. Tradition of sail training aboard large square-rigged vessels as part of the professional training of seafarers is widespread. The seminal event in the emergence of the modern international sail training movement was the organisation of the first Tall Ships Race in 1956. The value and benefits of sail training were treated as unproblematic and implicit. Research on sail training since 2000 has developed significantly. Sail training as an international, but not yet universal, movement or network is uniquely placed to build bridges between nations and cultures.
