2020 - 2021
OYSTER BAY GUIDE
Page 27
Preserving sports during the pandemic: Sailors train in a ‘bubble’ By Letisha Dass
S
ports were canceled and training was put on hold for many athletic facilities as the coronavirus pandemic infected so many nationwide, but not at Oakcliff Sailing Center. When the initial outbreak started to appear closer to home, the sailing center decided to close immediately and place all of its members in self-quarantine for two weeks. “On March 5, we went into our own personal quarantine,” Dawn Riley, CEO of Oakcliff Sailing Center, said, “In part because we’re sailors and we have international friends, and we saw what was happening in the rest of the world.” After the quarantine and the sailors tested negative for the coronavirus, they entered their “team bubbles,” a set group of people that each member would be living and interacting with during the pandemic. “We developed a protocol for people to come into the bubble, which was where the people that were here stayed in,” Riley said. “One of us, which turned out to be me, every two weeks would go to the grocery store fully kitted up in PPE, which included our weather gear, which is our typical sailing gear, which I can wash off when I get home. I was shopping for 11 who were living on site.”
The key to the success of these “bubbles” was the willingness of each teammate to accept the responsibility of caring for 10 other people, their livelihoods, health, and their responsibility to the organization as a whole, Riley said. The center has been able to provide party masks that have made it easier for each member to take part in training and be social as they sail together in their bubbles. Along with these masks, the center created the Cocktail Breeze series, which is a series of educational and entertaining videos for the sailors. In the upcoming fall, the center will be experiencing its first school semester with teammates able to take classes online, which wasn’t available in the past, while also training. Although family and friends are not able to visit the center, the teammates are allowed to leave only dressed in full protective gear of masks, gloves, proper clothing, and upkeep high levels of sanitation. “We’re ruthlessly responsible with our safety, and it’s nothing personal,” Riley said. “It’s just facts. This is a horrible virus.”
Courtesy Oakcliff Sailing Center
Above photo: This fall, Oakcliff Sailing teammates will be able to take classes online, which wasn’t available in the past, while also training.
