SVSU’s sailing team requires no experience to join, and recent club numbers prove students are taking advantage of the opportunity.
This fall, the club has nearly doubled in size from 12 members last spring to 23 now, according to Piper Luke, Commodore of the team and senior political science major. Many of the new members had never been on a sailboat before joining the team.
“I feel like sailing can be … intimidating,” Luke said. “So, it’s really cool that I can teach people and learn.”
Vice Commodore Adam Bryant, a senior mechanical engineering major, said they have worked extremely hard to establish SVSU as a team. They compete against teams like Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Purdue, all of which have decades of experience behind their teams.
The team sails on 420 Dinghies, which are two-person boats designed for sailing short-distances. They race in regattas, which are weekend competitions for university sailing teams. The races consist of maneuvering round a course marked by buoys — the first team to complete two laps wins.
“[Regattas are] tricky because you have to get angles super precise,” Bryant said. “You have to look out for gusts of wind. Sometimes the wind just switches direction on you.”
They aren’t focused on winning yet, Luke and Bryant both said. Their goals for this year are getting every new member to compete in at least one regatta this semester and to pay off their sailboat trailer through fundraising. Bryant also expressed they want to grow closer to the other teams and meet more people this year.
Terry Hart has coached the team since it was created in 2021, and spoke to the team’s growth since then. “There are three or four of them who are brand new this year. [They have] never been on a sailboat,” he said. “So we are teaching them to sail, and in a couple weeks, they’re going to go to their first regatta. They won’t be steering, but they will compete.”
The team practices at Saginaw County’s Haithco Park. The park allows them to store and rig their boats in the fall and spring semesters.
Bryant expressed the progress they make is incredibly personal for him. “When we started, it was basically me, Piper, and two other people who were consistent members,” he said. “Seeing that go to where we are now, we have five boats and tons of new people, I’m really excited to see how far we can grow.”
Luke said she hopes the program continues for the sake of new sailors learning. “Sailing for adults is really expensive to learn,” she said. “It’s a really cool experience to have in college because it’s so much cheaper here than it would be anywhere else.”
As the team continues their fall season, they are still accepting new members. More information can be found on their website, svsusailing.weebly.com, and their Instagram, @svsusailingteam.
