Local youth on a sea survival course with the Maritime School of the West Indies
MARIGOT--In a joint press release issued over the weekend, Maritime School of the West Indies (MSWI), International Yacht Training (IYT) and SF Sailing NV announced that the Maritime School is now under the new ownership of Garth Steyn, managing director of SF Sailing NV in Sint Maarten.
The Maritime School was started and managed by Veerle Rolus in January 2004 until today. The school is affiliated with IYT (with world headquarters in Canada) and many of the IYT world-wide recognized courses are taught at the school. MSWI has built an extraordinarily good reputation all over the world in the yachting world and beyond.
Said Veerle Rolus: "It's time to handover the school to younger people, and someone like Garth who is constantly involved in teaching youngsters sailing, he is the perfect candidate to continue our relationship with IYT and the hundreds of mega yachts, local boats and charter vessels which we have provided certificates with over the years.
“In addition, with his sailing school he will attract young people to follow official courses and hopefully see more youngsters making a choice to enter the yachting world. We have been blessed with wonderful teachers during my time at the school and I am very happy that several will continue with Garth. We've always had a great relationship with IYT also and I'm sure that MSWI under new ownership and management will not disappoint anyone."
Remarked Mark Fry from IYT: "Maritime School of the West Indies has been an IYT-approved training facility for almost 20 years. Thousands of Superyacht crew have been successfully trained to Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) and moved on to successful careers in the Superyacht industry.
“We welcome the introduction of Garth Steyn to take over the operations of MSWI and look forward to a continuing successful relationship. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Veerle and Jan for their 20 years of hard work and wish them all the very best with their future endeavours.”
Added Garth Steyn: “The opportunity arose and we have been moving forward since Hurricane Irma with helping educate the local youth in collaboration with the Kidz at Sea Foundation. This way we will be able to work with the yachting and shipping crews and hopefully be able to mix the classes so that the local population will also have more exposure to that industry. We thank Jan and Veerle for all the hard work that they have put in over the years in establishing this school and we will work hard to uphold its good reputation."
The Maritime School of the West Indies will keep the same domain name: https://www.MaritimeSchool.net and e-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. A new web site lay-out will be made soon. Temporary Contact information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Phone: (1-721) 580-5806
