Three-year-old girl dies in boating accident

Are you telling me that someone sent a 3-year old for sailing lessons?

what the heck was a 3 yr old doing on a sailboat?

Potential contenders for Parents of the Year award!

Was she wearing a life jacket?

Renee,
Good Question.

A VERY young life cut short, what a tragedy. My sympathies to the devastated family.

Renee wrote:

Was she wearing a life jacket?

Yes she was.

How sad. My heartfelt prayers to this poor family...

what rational "parent" would send a 3year old sailing?

How tragic. My thoughts and prayers are with the family during this difficult time.

So Sad, so very sad, but I have to agree-why was a 3 year old taking sailing lesson? What are we missing in this story folks?

Poor parents, they are the ones that have to live with their decision to put her on that boat.

So when is a good age to "test the waters" with your children?..would you stop your child from going into the water at a lake or beach at 3?..accidents can happen there too and they do! My husband and I have a 30 ft fishing boat and we take our 2 year old out on it .. you people are looking to deep into who's a bad parent or who's fault it is why don't you have compassion and give your hearts out to the ones who have been directly effected by this tragedy..why must everyone always point fingers.. it would be a different story if this happened in your family.

Condolences to the family. A 3 year old may have been taking sailing lessons because her parents own a boat and wanted her to know the safety issues. You cant fault the parents or the person operating the boat. It blew over, it was no one fault. Again, my condolences.

First, my condolences to the family, and also to the instructor who has to live with this poor child's death too.
IMO, 3 is too young to be on a catamaran, a very fast and tippy boat. Longshore Sailing School has other boats that are less liable to "turtle" then a cat. Which, by the way, have no sides or gunwals, so it is very easy to just fall in too.
I do have to agree that it was a poor decision on the part of the parents. Also, Longshore should have a policy of minimum age. They shouldn't have let the instructor take those kids out without a parent.
Again, this is just my opinion. I now need to go hug my kids.

This is very sad. Little girl was probably having a great time, and this had to happen.

There is no God. And if there is, F him.

Why in Holy H e l l would you have a 3 year old on a Hobie Cat?

My condolences to the family & to the instructor. This is a terrible tradgedy! Was the instructor related? How old were the other children? was she wearing a life jacket that was proper size? Accidents happen around water & you try to prevent it. My child is taking ISR (infant swim resource)lessons in Orange to learn how to save himself in water.Because accidents do happen. This program just came to CT. Btw he is 22 months old. The youngest there is 10 months. No floaties or water wings. Its amazing. I saw it on the today show & on www.infantswim.com I know it can't bring back this little girl but perhaps it can prevent any additional tragedies.
The instructors name is Dena her email is infantswimct@gmail.com

Maria From east haddam wrote:

So when is a good age to "test the waters" with your children?..would you stop your child from going into the water at a lake or beach at 3?..accidents can happen there too and they do! My husband and I have a 30 ft fishing boat and we take our 2 year old out on it .. you people are looking to deep into who's a bad parent or who's fault it is why don't you have compassion and give your hearts out to the ones who have been directly effected by this tragedy..why must everyone always point fingers.. it would be a different story if this happened in your family.

I think Maria needs to recognize that there is a difference between 2 parents taking a child on a boat with both of them to watch her vs. a single instructor trying to watch 3 children on a sailboat. There's also a huge difference between this situation and taking a child to the beach for a day. We are talking about a 3 year old child - she probably can't tie her own shoes let alone a sailor's knot. While my sympathy goes out to the family, there was definitely some poor judgment here by both the parents and the sailing school.

According to the Ct. Post the other two children are age 3 and 6. All three children were wearing life jackets. Still, one adult and three chldren under ten on a hobie doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Back in the stone age when I took sailing lessons you had to take a swimming test to qualify for lessons. Might be a good new rule.

Was she wearing a safety vest? If not, then the adult needs to be held accountable.

Blessings to this childs family.

mike wrote:

According to the Ct. Post the other two children are age 3 and 6. All three children were wearing life jackets. Still, one adult and three chldren under ten on a hobie doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Back in the stone age when I took sailing lessons you had to take a swimming test to qualify for lessons. Might be a good new rule.

I agree Mike. I think its great they were being taught but one adult? To teach and watch? Makes no sense at all. They should have had at least one other adult to maintain the children without being distracted in instruction.