After almost three decades, a sailing club is returning to Eastern Michigan University. Originally started in 1967, the club had existed at the university until around 1981.
Adam Dreher, an EMU junior studying political science, stumbled across the group in the library archives while doing research for an English 121 project.
“Once I found that out in the archives I was just like, ‘You know, why couldn’t we bring it back?’ ” Dreher said.
Since then he has searched around EMU looking for fellow boating enthusiasts to help him get the group off the ground and onto the water. While searching on EMU’s website Dreher stumbled across Dr. Michael Angell, a biology professor who had his own sailing group.
“I got in touch with him and he was pretty much instrumental in getting this thing off the ground,” said Dreher.
After securing a faculty advisor and becoming an officially recognized student organization, the group’s first big obstacle was getting together enough money to purchase boats.
“We ended up fundraising a little bit and also we requested $1000 from student government. We were able to buy two 1996 JY15’s from the University of Michigan’s Sailing Club and we’re just waiting to pick them up,” Dreher said.
“Basically, we’ll be all set once spring rolls around to really start going out.”
Before now the group had been training using boats owned by students and professors. But with these two small sailboats the group is one step closer to entering competitions.
“As of right now [the group] is pretty much recreational because the umbrella organization that handles collegiate events in this region is the Midwest Collegiate Sailing Association—they work with two different types of boats: the 420s and the Flying Juniors, both of which are different boats than what we have, which is the JY15s,” Dreher explained.
“With the JY15s we’ll be able to have friendly competitions with the University of Michigan sailing club, but we won’t be able to officially compete in the Midwest Collegiate Sailing Association yet. But the plan is probably in a year or two to be able to really take the whole region by storm.”
Over the winter the group will be recruiting new members and raising money in preparation for spring, when they will start training on Ford Lake.
Starting in March the group will be holding a five week seminar on sailing taught by Professor Derrick Fries from the EMU Special Education department.
Fries knows a thing or two about sailing: He was a 2005 nomination for the Sailing World International Hall of Fame, has won numerous sailing titles and is the author of the book “Start Sailing Right,” which is published as an official guide for the U.S. Sailing Association.
“Every Tuesday in March at 2 p.m. we’re going to hold what we call a ‘shore school,’ and that’s when Dr. Fries will be able to share his knowledge with students, which for the most part a lot of people end up paying a lot of money for. And he’s been generous enough to do that for free,” explained Dreher.
The group is open to everyone and previous sailing experience is not required. To get more information contact Commodore Dreher at adreher@emich.edu or attend one of the group’s meetings, which take place Fridays at 2 p.m. in the EMU Student Center.
