Boston Public Schools Sailing Team Debuts

The Boston Public School kids were not the best sailors at this week's Massachusetts Bay League Championship. They weren't the biggest team, either. Or the loudest. But, the thing is, they were there.

For Mark Racine and a small cadre of dedicated supporters who fought to make the team a reality over the past year, that felt pretty darn good, thank you very much. And although the BPS team was amid a veritable sea of schools with deeper pockets and more experienced competitors, they were able to post an impressive fourth place showing in the Silver Division.

A year ago, none of this seemed all that possible.

After moving to Boston to teach fifth grade in 2006, Racine become involved with Courageous Sailing in Charlestown and at . His parents owned a small Sunfish when he was a kid, and he enjoyed taking it out on lakes in Maine, but he was never that serious of a sailor. That is, until he hooked up with Courageous. His skill increased dramatically and he began racing competitively. He was hooked.

“I just love that there’s a part of sailing for everybody,” he said at Tuesday along the Charles River. “It’s a physical sport. It’s a mental sport. It’s academically challenging. It’s relaxing; it’s exciting. There are different ways to enjoy it. That’s what I love. You can go out on a boat and just have a nice sail in the afternoon and relax, or you can go out and race on a Saturday and be physically challenged the whole time. It’s a sport for everybody.”

The problem was, despite Courageous’ best efforts to provide free sailing lessons to Boston school students, most of the coveted first-come, first-serve spots were going to kids from neighboring towns. Either that, or they were going to students from the Boston Latin School, who already had a high school team and accordingly had more access to the water. Hardly any of the after-school sailors were from Boston Public.

All of which irked Racine.

Last summer he started looking into launching a BPS team, and soon realized the challenge he was facing. At that point, he didn’t have any students lined up. No parents. Nobody from the school district. It was, really, just him.

He inquired with Community Boating along the Charles, since they work with a number of high school teams already. No dice. The price wasn’t right and the setup was more inclined to established teams looking to plug themselves into the Community Boating rubric. Not a guy, by himself, with no athletes and no money.

So he inquired with Courageous Sailing, and it just so happened that they were looking to expand their school program. They agreed to supply boats and help with costs. Two of Courageous’ instructors, Chris DuBois and Rosemary Lyons, were hired to coach the team. All they had to do was raise money for some supplies and to pay the coaches.

Easier said than done. While appreciative of his efforts, the Boston Public School system didn’t contribute financially to the team. Things remained at a standstill until this January, when Racine wrote a blog post for Sailing Anarchy. Soon thereafter, support started pouring in. People wrote from all over the world to offer their support and encouragement. People who had started similar programs gave their advice. Local sailors offered their time and energy during practice.

With the help of Courageous Sailing, and Zim Sailing, the team held a fundraiser in March. That fundraiser, combined with a generous private donation, gave the group enough money to cover their costs.

In other words, mission accomplished.

Four Boston Public School students joined full-time: sophomore David Rodriguez of Fenway Pilot; junior Elisabeth Geffken, a Roslindale resident who is home schooled and sponsored by ; sophomore Kelsey Delosh of Boston Latin Academy and senior Taylor Delosh of Boston Latin Academy. Senior Luke McKinnon of Boston Latin School also competes with the team.

The team’s first practice was March 21, in a snow storm. DuBois and Lyons figured this would be a development year, just trying to catch up to other school districts and kids who've been on the water far more often than the BPS group. While that's been the case in some ways, in others the BPS athletes have exceeded expectations. Rodriguez and Geffken finished second in a race Tuesday, something even Rodriguez himself didn't know was possible.

"I didn't know I had that ability in me," he said. "I've come here a couple times but I haven't gotten nearly as good of a standing as I have today. I've definitely improved and I've seen a lot of improvement in the crew and with everybody.

"We teach each other as well as the coaches teaching us," he added later. "We have chalk talk and we go over books and we have homework too. It's basically like another class, but it's more fun. It's out on the water."

That synergy between the classroom and sailboat is something Racine hopes to explore in the future. He'd like to involve BPS teachers so the athletes can learn about the wind and weather and physics of sailing.

They'd also like to expand into different types of sailing: larger boats, cruising and coastal navigation. DuBois and Lyons have made the human element their focus thus far, prodding the children to learn life lessons that will help them beyond the water. And, of course, they'll need to raise more money to purchase more supplies.

There's no telling where the program will go from here, although the enthusiastic and earnest trio of Racine, DuBois and Lyons feel the sky is the limit. There's certainly no denying the effect the program has had on its charter members.

“You keep getting put in situations where you have to test yourself and you have to figure out what you’re going to do next,” Geffken said. “When you do come up with a solution, or if you don’t, you always learn something and you always end up with more confidence than you had before. It’s helped me as a person to, when I go into other situations, know that I can deal with it too.”

In other words, it's worth every penny.

Want to help support the team? Email Mark Racine to find out how.