By Andrea Holbrook
More Gloucester teenagers now have the chance to sail, thanks to a gift from the Eastern Point Yacht Club.
The yacht club¬ has donated two 420 Vanguard sailboats to Gloucester High School to support the development of its racing team. The gift was made during a ceremony last Friday at Solomon Jacobs Park.
The 420 Vanguard is a durable, high-performance, two-person racing dinghy, and enables young sailors to learn teamwork, trapeze, and spinnaker techniques. This model of new sailboat, delivered, retails for about $8,000.
The boats given to Gloucester High were all "gently used" ones from the yacht club's teaching program, said Tracey Hughes, chairwoman of Junior Sailing at Eastern Point Yacht Club. Money to replace them was raised through an afternoon cocktail party and auction last August, supported by area businesses and about 235 members of the yacht club.
About 20 high and middle school students from Gloucester and Rockport are part of Gloucester High School's sailing team.
Sailing is extracurricular team sport at the school.
"It's not a varsity sport yet," said Patti Page of SAILGHS. "But we are a member of the Massachusetts Bay League, an organization in Boston that governs the sport, and organizes races between high school teams."
The club now has enough boats in the water, including the 420s, that no one has to sit on the dock waiting for a turn at the tiller, team coach Kevin Cook said in his blog on the team's Web site, www.sailghs.org.
The Gloucester High racing program was developed through collaboration between the high school, the city of Gloucester, area businesses and Eastern Point Yacht Club.
Work on the project began three years ago, when Gloucester resident Patti Page decided that the high school needed a sailboat racing program. It quickly became clear that the resources to support her idea were not available through the high school or the city. But Page was not deterred and began to reach out to area yacht clubs in hopes of finding a partner willing to donate some boats and other materials.
"Gloucester is one of the most beautiful harbors anywhere, and kids who grow up here spend a lot of time on it and around it," Page said. "Many of them become interested in commercial boating, but sailing catches their imagination in a way that is hard to describe. The folks at EPYC 'get it,' and their generosity has made this dream possible for lots of kids."
The sailing team is scheduled to take on Winchester this afternoon after holding its first scrimmage Tuesday on Gloucester Harbor against Pingree School of Hamilton.
"We have really good raw talent, and all of them worked together against another team for the first time and did really well," Page said. The team has been on the water about two weeks, and will sail through April into May, and end the season Memorial Day Weekend.
The team competes against Boston Latin, Dover-Sherbourn, Wellsley, Manchester Essex, and Pingree high schools. The next meets at home are against Lincoln Sudbury on April 28 and Notre Dame on April 29.
Present at Friday's donation ceremony were Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk; Kim Patience, Gloucester High's athletic director; Hughes; Cook; Neil Denehy, the yacht club's general manager; Page; and Gloucester middle school student Bethany Haselgard, a member of the SailGHS team.
"I know I speak for many when I say that the city is grateful to the Eastern Point Yacht Club for expanding the opportunity for Gloucester's youth to enjoy the magnificence of Gloucester Harbor," Kirk said when asked about the donation.
Over the past three years Eastern Point Yacht Club has donated three 420s to the high school to support this program.
"The members at EPYC have been very supportive of Patti's extraordinary efforts right from the start," Hughes said on behalf of the yacht club. "We are all very excited to be able to promote sailing in Gloucester in this way and hope our collaboration will continue for many years to come."
Denehy said Joe Boreland was instrumental in making the club's gift to the sailing team occur.
"He did a lot of the logistical work, moving the boats from point A to point B, just coordinating the whole thing," Denehy said. "He really got it rolling, without Joe it never would have happened."
Andrea Holbrook may be reached at aholbrook@gloucestertimes.com.
