Sail Newport expands its footprint to keep up with demand.
The genesis of Sail Newport was its founding in the aftermath of the 1983 loss of the America’s Cup to the Lads from The Land Down Under. It started as an idea and a hope to keep major sailing events coming to Newport. In the intervening years Sail Newport has done that with a vengeance and in the process has become a powerhouse in the sailing community, locally, regionally and internationally.
Sail Newport is THE premier community sailing center in Rhode Island and highly regarded across the country. This profile and a tremendously skilled staff and cadre of volunteers available for sailing adventures have made Sail Newport one of the Go To venues for hosting your regatta. They can and have run regattas as diverse as a local Opti Green fleet event to regional, national, North American and world championships plus elite events: the VOR and America’s Cup world series. For example, on the Sail Newport calendar for 2016, beginning end of April running thru to end of October there are Four National championships, two North Americans, a couple of regionals, several youth related coaching and Opti like regattas, the Melges 32 worlds and the World Match Racing tour Newport stop. With the ‘other’ regattas, Sail Newport is hosting a total of 24 regattas in 6 months…..And that is just ONE entity in Newport…
But after close to thirty-three years, Sail Newport has outgrown is the physical plant at Fort Adams. The buildings are both small and aging and becoming vastly outgrown by the continued growth of Sail Newport and related growth of staff amongst other elements.
In order to meet this pre middle age spread as it were, Sail Newport’s board, directors and executive staff, led by Executive Director Brad Read, have been developing a plan for modest expansion to accommodate the increasing demand for the services that Sail Newport’s core mission offers. The centerpiece of this expansion is the construction of a building on land that regulars will commonly see rigged with a tent in summer, at the foot of the Admirals pier.
The three story building, officially called the Marine Education and Recreational facility, will have public bathrooms, locker rooms with showers, seasonal dock office and storage, offices, presentation areas and class rooms. There will be Americans with Disabilities Act access to the lobby and an elevator. The entire lower level is designed so it can be evacuated in the event of storms and built so that flood-waters may wash through the building.
Embracing Rhode Island’s commitment to a more environmentally and sustainable future, the building will encompass many of the latest environmental building practices: Solar panels, landscaping and filters to mitigate the effects of water run off and many related elements of contemporary ‘green’ building. And because of the historical aspect of the Ft. Adams complex the new building is designed to compliment the look of existing buildings on the property.
On a dark and stormy April night in Newport, RI, the feel was a lot more summer, kids, sailing and learning, inside a meeting room at the Newport Public Library. This was the venue for the Environmental Assessment /Assessment of Effect open house required by law. A gathering of twenty five to thirty people some dripping from the torrential rain outside milled around reading the overall brief, studying renderings of the building, plans for the project and discussing the project. Because Sail Newport leases it facility from the State of Rhode Island and the entire Fort Adams complex is under the control of a variety of federal agencies, there were representatives from these agencies to answer questions. Read and senior staff from Sail Newport were present as was Mohamad Farzan, principal of Newport Architecture, the designers of the building. Other stake holders in the Park including the president of Newport Rugby a perennial consumer of the fields up the hill to the west of the Ft. Adams access road were seen browsing the presentation.
Sail Newport is indeed a fantastic facility for sailing from, especially in the summer. The introduction of this new building is very timely considering the expansion of, in particular, High School sailing in the spring. Apart from the small Sail Newport office the other buildings available are unheated and so not conducive to chalk-talk like activities when the in the water conditions do not lend themselves to sailing.
Beginning this spring, three of the high schools on Aquidneck Island plus Prout School in Wakefield RI are all sailing out of Sail Newport and this is creating it’s own great Gravitational Density for local youth sailors. On a recent Wednesday afternoon sailing from Sail Newport were the four schools mentioned plus St Georges sailing a match against Moses Brown plus a couple of the St. Georges JV teams practicing. All told there were close to twenty five 420’s out sailing with perhaps 60 teenage sailors on the water, 6 coach boats and several racing and practice areas going all at once. And this count excludes Salve Regina University who is based out of the boat basin at the north end of the park. If they were out too, the count may well be over 40 boats and a hundred young sailors.
That Newport is the Sailing Capital of the world there can be no doubt. The new building on site and the expansion of the Sail Newport core mission, to introduce youth sailors to the sport and to provide public access to the water will add another boat length or two to this truism and make Sail Newport an even better place to sail from than it already is.
Leave a Reply