I sailed offshore for the first time with an outfit set up more or less with the same goal -- young people 16+. It was bigger, sort of organized, but definitely not the kind of operation a helicopter parent would let a child get involved with. This was in England in about 1968. The attitude there, then, was pretty much as Arthur Ransome summed it up in Swallows and Amazons, "If not duffers won't drown stop If duffers best drowned."