PRINTSeaworthy vessels
These sailors find their sea legs without leaving Missouri ... or even having to step onto a boat
Anthony Castellano
From left, the Zena, Puffin and Mariah are remote-controlled sailboats. They prepare for racing on Lake Elsdon in Columbia. While the wind provides their power, the owners control their rudders and sails. These boats and their owners are members of the six-year-old Columbia-based Mid-Missouri Model Sailboat Club.
September 13, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
The countdown comes to a close. Five ... four ... three ... Nearly transparent white sails swerve and circle one another. The sailboats maneuver for the best position near a small yellow buoy with the number one etched in its foam. Two … one … A gust of wind comes from the south end of the lake, sending ripples toward the starting line. A small boombox situated on the sidelines finally plays the recording of a gunshot. The race begins.
The sailboats, Mariah, Zena, Diversion and Störtebeker, glide through the ripples of Lake Elsdon on a Sunday afternoon last April. The ground, covered with new sprigs of green grass, is still soft from numerous weeks of rain. The incessant sounds of lawnmowers firing up and barking dogs from the neighborhood surround the lake. Lynn Ray, a member of the Mid-Missouri Model Sailboat Club and owner of Zena, brings small buoys to the edge of the lake before the start of the club’s race day. In his floppy fisherman’s hat and light jacket, he spins weights in a lasso-type movement to cast the buoys into the middle of the lake, eventually creating a racecourse of bright-orange, yellow and green markers. The sailors ready their boats for a day of competition.
From left, Dick Martin, Tom Trabue and Lynn Ray race their model sailboats around the ...
Tom Trabue races his boat Diversion on Lake Elsdon. Trabue’s season got off to a ...
Landlocked sailors
For the past four months, members of the Mid-Missouri Model Sailboat Club have been bringing their boats to various lakes in Columbia. Each Sunday they enjoy a day of racing. Dick Martin, a retired physician, co-founded the club in January 2001, and its membership has grown to about 14 people, with six to eight members who regularly show up for the Sunday races. Their ages and professions vary from teenagers to the retired and schoolteachers to business owners.
The laid-back atmosphere of the races and carefree dispositions of the sailors dispel images of snooty yacht club members who sip dry martinis and wear perfectly knotted Ralph Lauren sweaters with pristine, starched white shorts. The club has attracted members from all over the state and even one from Kansas City. With the season coming to an end in December, the club is gearing up to host the Columbia Cup Regatta on Nov. 4 on Lake Elsdon. People from all over the country have been invited to take part in the competition in Columbia.
Big fish in a smaller pond
Martin is the Fleet Captain of this mid-Missouri club and serves as the CR 914 Class Secretary for the American Model Yachting Association. He travels to model-sailboat regattas across the country in addition to the club’s Sunday races. He chose the CR 914, a 36-inch boat, as one that a club could be built around.
“I wanted it to be a good-looking boat, like a real sailboat,” Martin says. “I wanted it to be fairly small and easy to transport. It needed to be a boat someone could start out with.” Martin first built a CR 914 in the fall of 2000 and raced it at the National Championship in Annapolis the next spring.
Martin raced full-scale sailboats professionally for more than 50 years before he tried out his sea legs in a much smaller pond. At the model races, Martin leans from side to side as his boat follows the motion of a metronome with each change of wind direction. He paces back and forth along the edge of the lake to keep even with Mariah.
Martin says he always wanted to build one last big boat. This last boat had to be fast and serious. He wanted to name it after the wind. It had to live up to the dramatic lyrics of the song “They Call the Wind Maria” from the musical Paint My Wagon.
Posh playthings
Model-sailboat racing has become a popular sport around the country since its inception in 1965. Almost 200 clubs, representing nearly 30 classes of sailboats and located all over the United States, are registered with the American Model Yachting Association. Model-sailboat kits vary in size, price and design. The smallest class of boats is 12 inches long, and the largest boat, a “J” model, can be up to 95 inches long and weigh nearly 100 pounds. The mid-Missouri chapter exclusively sails the CR 914 model. The kit for this boat is about $500. A pre-assembled CR 914 could cost about $850, which is still in the lower price range of model kits; some reach nearly $5,000.
These toy boats, as they are lovingly called by members of the club, are remote-controlled. While the wind provides the power, the sailor controls the rudder for steering and manages the angle and direction of the sails. Each time the wind stops or changes direction, the sailor uses the controls to bring in the sails and harness the wind to drive the boat forward. It is a constant battle for each sailor. The tiniest increase or decrease in wind forces the sailor to make changes with the remote control. The pace of model sailboat racing is much faster than full-scale racing. It takes both patience and concentration to successfully navigate the waters without stalling the boat.
Each of the boats is handcrafted to reflect the personality or interests of its owner. At 45 years old, Ingolf Gruen is the youngest of these dedicated sailors. He is the little brother figure in their group and allows the others to tease him. He is off to a rough start in the beginning of the day. His boat, Störtebeker, trails behind the others until Ray points out the direction of the wind for him. Gruen laughs as his boat misses the buoy, and he attempts to turn it around. “The problem is the boats are so well-matched,” Gruen says. “It’s not the boat but the person.”
Pirate of the pond
Four years ago, Gruen was driving by one of the club’s race days. Already having a boat in the garage and an interest in the hobby, he stopped and promised to come out the next time they raced.
The next time they raced turned out to be the next weekend, and Gruen was there. “I brought my boat out and realized it was a slow clunker,” Gruen says. “I was really bad, but now I’m just mediocre.”
Störtebeker is the rogue of Lake Elsdon. It’s named after a German pirate in the 12th century who cruised the Baltic Seas. Störtebeker was a Robin Hood-style pirate, who was never reincarnated as a Disney character. Some would attribute this to the fact that he met his demise in a most unseemly manner: He was decapitated. A skull and crossbones adorn the boat’s sails, and its hull glitters with red, black and yellow, the colors of the German flag.
Poseidon’s principle
Ray, the owner of Zena, nicknamed “The Warrior Princess,” unfortunately finishes in the straggler category with Gruen this Sunday. Dick Martin made Zena for his wife in an attempt to get her interested in the sport. The name is derived from the scientific name of her favorite bird, the mourning dove. Martin’s wife did not end up sharing his love of sailing, and Zena, a silver sailboat with electric pink accents, was passed on to Ray. They’ve considered renaming Zena, but Martin warns against it. A true sailor, he follows the rules of the sea as set forth by Poseidon. Martin explains the ritual for renaming. Poseidon has a ledger of every boat that sails his waters. A ceremony must be performed to erase every trace of the boat’s former name, and then they must christen the boat’s new identity, usually with a bottle of champagne. Bad luck ensues for sailor and boat alike if Poseidon’s rules are ignored. Keeping this in mind, Ray has not seen a good enough reason to change the vessel’s name.
The home stretch
It’s nearly 4 p.m. on race day, and the Mid-Missouri Model Sailboat Club’s competition is almost at an end. The intermittent sunshine that existed throughout the day is now gone, and a cool wind takes control of the atmosphere around the lake. The geese, which at first fought for their domination of the lake, have retreated to the edges in defeat, giving the sailboats free reign. The last race begins, with only three boats surviving the battles of the day. Ray’s sailboat doesn’t make it; he teases the others and wants them to admit to putting his sails on backward.
Diversion, Mariah and Störtebeker sail past the start and head toward the first green buoy. The boats weave around one another, switch places and nearly collide throughout the race. The sailboats frantically fight to stay upright with each gust of wind. Nearing the end of the second lap, the sailboats line up, one after the other. Tom Trabue’s Diversion sweeps through the finish line and captures his eighth win of the day, placing him as the overall winner.
The wind disappears from Lake Elsdon, and the men, whose boats have stalled just before the finish line, eagerly wait to see the white sails begin to flutter one more time. In the meantime, Ray announces: “No wind boys. Time for beer.”
