As part of an Olympic Solidarity Program, Australian Sailing has been involved providing assistance to Cook Islands Sailing in the areas of program development, training of instructors and sports administrators and providing general guidance how to best grow the sport of Sailing. 
 
The program has contracted Australian Sailing Chief Instructor (Dinghy and Windsurfing), Chris Goldacre, to deliver a Sailing Program in the Cook Islands. The Cook Island Sailing Initiative has now completed Phase 2 of 3, with Chris Goldacre recently returning from his extremely successful trip. After taking learnings from his first trip to Rarotonga, which resulted in no participants gaining a full Australian Sailing Instructor qualification due to low sailing skills and difficulty in accessing online resources, the second trip to Aitutaki and Rarotonga once again has been a complete turnaround.
 
The success of the trip is reflected in the following key outcomes: 

• Two Dinghy Instructor courses delivered
• One Senior Dinghy Instructor (train the trainer)
• Ten Dinghy Instructors
• Four Assistant Instructors

In order to overcome the difficulty with online resources, Cook Islands Sailing were provided with Tackers Manuals, Start Sailing 1 & 2 run sheets, Better Sailing run sheets, Green Fleet program via USB. Additionally, further resources included the Dinghy Instructor Course run sheet, Instructor report forms, introductory video for instructor training and instructor/teaching notes were provided to Cook Islands Sailing.
 
When asked for feedback about the Cook Islands Program, Chris Goldacre commented, “I’m absolutely stoked. I really feel like I’ve made a worthwhile contribution to Sailing, I’ve gained a real sense of doing some good. I think the key to being a success long-term is the instructor training aspect and engagement with the Schools. Senior Instructor engagement with the schools will identify teachers who can become instructors, as well as provide opportunities to grow their own sailing skills."
  
The Cook Islands Sailing Program has been well received by participants claiming, “It’s an excellent course. Well planned. Well resourced, relevant and engaging. Goldy is awesome!”.
 
Phase 3 of the Cook Island Sailing Program will involve a focus on boosting administration capacity, processes and procedures with the potential to ‘share’ some of Australian Sailings course, membership, qualifications and website functionality.