Students take sail as camp returns to Moraine
MUDDY CREEK TWP — Although many sailors in the Moraine Sailing Camp return year after year to hone their skills on the water and the winds, longtime attendees this summer got to enter a new level of boating, one that involves teamwork.
Amy Barley, the camp’s director, said that the camp received new vessels this summer, Flying Scots, dinghies with two sails that require more people to control on the water.
“It’s the first time they get to work with a crew, get to work as a team,” Barley said. “They have a second sail, the jib sail, that they are responsible for, so they are starting to learn to be skipper and crew, as opposed to just sailing on their own boat.”
Moraine Sailing Camp takes place in for one week in June each year, where youths ages 8 to 17 learn the ropes of how to take on water using sailboats. The youngest children start off in small boats, but progress to the point where they can become sailing instructors themselves. Many of the volunteer instructors at the camp from June 22 to 26 had been through the Moraine Sailing Camp themselves.
The camp had 43 youths participating in the camp this year, coming from inside and outside of Butler County, according to Mark Mann, a board member for the Moraine Sailing Club, which runs the youth camp. Mann added that even the youngest children attending the camp this year were on boats by Monday afternoon, the first day of the camp.
“We teach them parts of the boat and basically how to sail, how to find where the wind is,” Mann said. “We have four kids who have never been in a boat before, and it’s kind of interesting, because they came (Monday) and at 1 o’clock, they were in a boat by themselves.”
Barley said the older instructors guide campers — and even newer sailing instructors — on how to become better sailors, and therefore, better instructors. She and Mann said some campers have gone on to sail in their higher education schools and some work in boating professionally.
Some campers also become members of the Moraine Sailing Club, which provides boats to paying members who can then take them out onto Lake Arthur for fun and enjoyment.
Barley said the basics of sailing help get youths acquainted with boating in a way that helps keep them safe on the water.
“They learn everything from rigging and safety to sailing upwind, sailing down wind, sailing a course, safety on the water,” Barley said.
The sailing camp started in 2015, according to Mann. He said the camp is still operated entirely by volunteers — about 40 of them — who come from different backgrounds.
He said the camp is a week long because it is run by volunteers, many of whom coordinate their summer schedules around the one week of camp.
Barley said registration for the camp always opens at 7 p.m. March 1 on the sailing club’s website, morainesailingclub.org. Registration usually fills up within 24 hours, she said, and the camp lowered the number of slots this year so the volunteers could better work with the youths who did sign up to attend.
“This way kids get more one-on-one time with instructors, instead of having to be in a larger group,” Barley said.
On Tuesday, June 23, dozens of sails could be seen peeking above the water on Watts Bay on Lake Arthur. Almost every member of the camp was out on the water, pulling on sails to maneuver their boats. The youngest sailors stayed near the shore, and instructors shouted instructions to children from their own boats.
Mann pointed out that each group has instructors and sailing club members piloting their own boats nearby so they could pull a person out of the water in the case of an emergency. But everyone on a vessel was outfitted with a life jacket, and each safety boat had several people on board so several people could respond to a need.
Some of the boaters Tuesday had to circle their vessels around buoys in the water. Others worked on catching wind in different parts of the lake, and some of the intermediate campers learned how to overturn a capsized boat.
Mann said instructors would intentionally capsize a vessel so sailors could learn how to flip it back over. On Tuesday, Sofia Semenov and Katya Pistsova held on to the side of their overturned sailboat, so they could hoist themselves onto the keel, a fin on its underside, to outweigh the other side of the boat to get it flipped upright.
It can be a challenge at first, especially for the smaller children of the camp, but Bill Paviol, community sail director for the sailing club, said it’s a necessary lesson.
“Keep trying,” Paviol yelled from a boat to the girls as they put all their weight onto the horizontal keel.
River Beckas, a six-year attendee of the sailing camp, said he would probably have never sailed if not for the camp at Moraine State Park.
“I initially started sailing on my first day of sail camp and I don’t think I’d be sailing if it wasn’t for this program,” he said.
Barley said sailing is an activity different from other water activities at Moraine State Park, even though kayaking and canoeing are also popular on Lake Arthur.
“Just being out, enjoying the lake, every aspect the lake has to offer,” Barley said. “Just being out there on the water, the wildlife, the sound of the water on the boat.”
Like other summer camps, the sailing camp also helps build relationships between youths, and gives them lessons in cooperation and teamwork. The addition of the Flying Scots to the camp adds to both of those values.
“And problem-solve, communicate their needs with each other,” Barley said.
Mann said it’s heartening to see youths go from the sailing camp to the Moraine Sailing Club, because the park and Butler County are unique in that they have this sport available in the first place. He added that he hopes to see youths use sailing as another reason to get to Moraine State Park.
“It’s another way to get outdoors,” he said.
