Having contributed for more than four decades to the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club, the President of HORC Giannis Maragoudakis gives us an outline of the course of HORC, the challenges of sailing today and the future of a sport that keeps going strong in the waters of the Aegean.
How has the HORC Sailing School contributed to the development of sea tourism over its course?
In the 1960s, the terms “offshore racing” and “sea tourism” were almost unknown. Only a few sailing boats, owned by eminent shipowners and factory owners, occasionally set out on leisure trips. 1961 was the year of the foundation of the Hellenic Offshore Racing Club which aimed at developing and spreading offshore racing throughout Greece. To this end, it established the Aegean Rally in 1963, the second oldest rally in the Mediterranean after the Italian “Giraglia” in an attempt to promote the Aegean islands and Greek water sports.
What’s more, it laid the foundations for the creation of an offshore sailing school which first operated in 1969 and followed international standards. Both initiatives played a pivotal role, both in the development of offshore racing and in sea tourism. Over the 56-year course of the Club, the HORC graduates of the Beginners, Advanced, Racing and Skipper courses, numbered 32,000 yachtsmen and the school became the lifeblood of offshore racing and sea tourism. Many of our graduates today work as skippers on chartered bareboat yachts in the sea tourism industry.
Read more on : Skipper ONDECK #078
