By Sail1Design’s Margaret Boehm
(Our apologies for earlier posting here an un-credited photo of the Bates College Sailing team to illustrate club college sailing. Won’t happen again.)
Most sailors must work extremely hard in order to fund their love of sailing. In recent years, professional sailors, junior programs and college teams have had to aggressively campaign in order to stay competitive. One sector of one-design sailing that has struggled greatly with the economic situation has been club sailing teams all around the country. Already dealing with the stress of looming college loan repayments, a bleak employment outlook and never enough money for a stellar social life, some college sailors are now taking on the added burden of keeping their club teams afloat. Shockingly, sometimes that means digging into their own pockets to save the club sailing team they love.
With University funding and member dues, the team still falls short of having the amount of money they need to remain competitive. The team has closed the funding gap by reaching out to NU Alumni, vending at sporting events for other varsity teams and most recently, setting up an online donation tab on the team’s website. Nickele cites the large number of members involved on the team for their recent fundraising successes, “we are fortunate to have a large enough team to supply the energy to back it up.” The University of Chicago team has been able to stay afloat by utilizing funding that University of Chicago sets aside for club sport teams and student dues. “Towards the end of each academic year, the teams’ representatives come together for a meeting where we all give a short presentation on how much our team expects to spend in the next year. We then go back and vote on how much money each team should receive. This annual allocation usually barely gets us to the minimum amount that we are able to function with. However, since this is being voted on every year, the amount varies widely from year to year,” said club team President Michael Kang. To raise additional funds, the team hosts mid-day barbeques and sells t-shirts on campus and every winter at the Strictly Sail-the Midwest’s premiere boat show held yearly at Chicago’s high traffic Navy Pier. Most of the funds the team receives goes towards paying their home yacht club and coaching fees. According to Kang, one short term fundraising goal for the University of Chicago team is getting the funds to repair the seals on 3 team dry suits so more of their sailors can sail during cold weather practices and regattas, “therefore, we haven’t been able to purchase or maintain our team gear and mainly rely on team members to purchase their own gear.”
While the Northwestern University and University of Chicago teams have had the manpower, coaches and membership numbers to keep developing, the American University sailing team has struggled to develop with the current economic situation, “Club Sailing is not a priority for the AU Athletic department in the least,” said Lisa Gabrielson, current president of the AU team. The team, who does not have their own fleet of boats, relies heavily on the support and generosity of the Georgetown and George Washington sailing teams, “both teams have huge fleets that they will let us practice on most days. Of course, this is not ideal, but we appreciate all the support we get from two other teams that are in our conference. Of course, our goal is to someday soon buy boats and we are launching a huge fundraising campaign this year to really get the ball rolling on that,” she said. Currently, the team is coach-less and does not have a faculty advisor, something that Gabrielson cites as an important way to keep some continuity with the team from year to year. However attempts to secure a faculty advisor have failed, “finding support for a team that has not won any national championships yet is hard.” According to Gabrielson, the dedicated team of 28 sailors in a campus of 6,000 undergraduates is seen as an unknown entity by most of the campus.
Despite a difficult road of fundraising and advisor searching ahead for her and the AU team, Gabrielson is hopeful for the future of the team, “Our team has been difficult to develop because of our financial strain, but we are all dedicated to the team and want to see it grow. Hopefully we’ll be able to gain the support we need from friends, family, alumni, and perhaps even the school if we
work hard enough. We have the talent; we just really need the rest of the pieces.”
work hard enough. We have the talent; we just really need the rest of the pieces.”
Sail1Designer Team of the Month University of Wisconsin-Madison has ferociously continued to fundraise since breaking into the top tier of national rankings. The team, which was seated as high as #10 in October, has felt the strain of the economy as they become more competitive, according to fundraising chairwoman Molly Forbes. “Paired with the worsening economy, our team’s recent push to compete at the top level has necessitated spending a lot more money. Traveling costs have gone up as we have increased the number of Inter-sectionals we attend, and coaching costs have increased as we recently hired a part time coach, Dave Elsmo, and have also been training with Zach Brown.”
Along with reaching out to alumni and aggressive letter campaigns, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has hosted two high school sailing clinics in the past two years. These clinics have been key fundraising events and have helped the team recruit the most competitive sailors. The most recent clinic, held two weeks ago, raised $2,500 for the team.
Despite these recent fundraising successes, the team is still struggling, “increasing expenses have put a lot of extra stress on the top sailors, who have been paying out of pocket for plane tickets and housing/food at regattas,” said Forbes. To combat this issue, Forbes and the team are starting a new “Adopt a Regatta” program where supporters can donate money for plane tickets, food and housing to specific notable regattas.
Despite undergoing immense financial strain this year, all four of the teams that spoke to Sail1Design are confident that their teams will still be able to further develop and become more competitive on the national sailing scene. The team from University of Wisconsin-Madison exemplifies that with diligent fundraising efforts and a committed set of athletes, club teams can break into the ranks of the top 10 college sailing teams.
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