Any student interested in sailing - regardless of his/her level of expertise - is welcome to join our sailing team. You must, of course, be able to swim! The season starts in early March. Our head sailing coach is Joe Cooper ("comfortable in a boat since I was four") who is in his 11th season coaching Prout's sailing team.
We sail from Sail Newport, located in Ft. Adams State Park in Newport on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3-6pm. We also sail on some Fridays in April and May at the Friday Night Lights series, a weekly regatta at Sail Newport with 8-12 local schools competing on a rotating basis. Parents, friends and family are welcome to come and watch; the courses are generally set up to accommodate a cheering section.
We practice with three other local teams, so there is lots of cross-training among the four schools. We sail co-ed, all-girl, or all-boy crews, depending on variables including the skills match of each sailor. We also give instant "on the job" sailing instruction to novices. Every season we have 2-4 novices who, after four years, become accomplished and fairly skilled sailors!
We use two-person dinghies called 420's, 4.2 meters long, or about 14 feet. We compete in fleet racing against 12 or so local high school teams and, in the 2018 season, Prout's team won or placed in all five Friday Night Lights, qualified for the largest regatta in New England for girls' high school sailing -- the Rebecca Herreshoff Memorial Regatta, finished second in that regatta, and placed third in the RI state championship.