Tom Herbert-Evans has been appointed as the America’s Cup Event Authority’s Community Sailing Manager.

The avid sailor resigned as the director of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club’s sailing academy last month to take on his new job overseeing the America’s Cup Community Sailing Project to be launched this summer.

It was a job opportunity Herbert-Evans simply could not refuse.

“This was too good an opportunity to pass up,” he said. “For myself, it’s an opportunity to get stuck in and make an impact.

“It’s not every day the America’s Cup comes to your home and as soon as Bermuda was announced I wanted to get involved in some fashion. I can’t wait to get started.”

The America’s Cup Community Sailing Project will enable participants to engage in educational initiatives, enjoy the experience of boating, as well as tour Oracle Team USA’s base in Dockyard.

Another component of the programme will involve a training/internship programme, where the top five men’s and women’s college sailors in the United States will be brought in to train with and learn from Oracle Team USA.

Three of the top intercollegiate coaches will also be invited to Bermuda to work with the team and share coaching technology.

“The America’s Cup is working with some incredible partners to put together a programme that will reach across all of Bermuda and last beyond 2017,” Herbert-Evans said.

“The Community Sailing Programme is a chance to reach into the schools through the STEM education modules [Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths] and get children interested not just in the America’s Cup, but in the broader skills the people on the teams need to apply to have success.

“What you see with the teams in the America’s Cup is the highest level of achievement and we want to show children in Bermuda that they can strive for this too.

“The programme is being set up over the coming months and we’ll launch it at the end of the summer. The goal is give all children between 9 and 12 an opportunity to get out on the water and experience our sport.”

The first building blocks of the programme, eight Hobie Wave catamarans, have already arrived on the island and been tested.

The America’s Cup Community Sailing Project is expected to serve as a blueprint for similar programmes in other countries to be rolled out over the coming years.