In the news
Northern Vermont High School Sailing Team: a sailor’s delight
Report By: Shelburne News
The Northern Vermont High School Sailing Team set sail for the fall season on Aug. 24. Hosted by the Community Sailing Center and under the direction of its Associate Director, Jen Guimaraes, coached by Colin “Tanner” Proctor, assisted by Brian Baker and Pierre Dillon, 45 teens sail the beautiful waters of Lake Champlain three times a week practicing skills and competing most weekends with other high school sailing teams throughout New England.
Read more here!
Burlington After-School Sailing Program Promotes Accessibility And Leadership
Report By: Kathleen Masterson & Mitch Wertlieb, VPR
Sailing is often an expensive sport, and that means it’s not always accessible to everyone who might be interested. But the Community Sailing Center on Lake Champlain in Burlington is working hard to give all kids the opportunity to get out on the water.
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New fair calls attention to plight of Lake Champlain
Report By: Rose Spillman, WCAX
BURLINGTON, Vt. –
Many of us admire Lake Champlain from the water or the shore, but how much do we really know about it? A new effort is designed to make Vermonter a little more Champlain savvy.
Rae Bronenkant, an Education Intern at ECHO, has a passion for plankton. “I love plankton personally,” she said.
On Sunday, Bronenkant joined forces with local environmental non-profits and volunteers to engage the public about the Lake Champlain ecosystem. “You don’t think about plankton, and they’re really essential in the food web — being the bottom. And they are the primary producers of the lake with the phytoplankton,” Bronenkant said. “So we are having them create different plankton, and we have inspirational photos down here.”
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Sailing center prepares to break ground
Report By: Zach Despart, Burlington Free Press
The nonprofit Community Sailing Center in Burlington could break ground on a new building as early as September.
“The expectation is that the site work, closing of the area and doing some preliminary foundation work will be complete … before they close up shop for the winter,” sailing center Executive Director Mark Naud said.
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Students Get Stem Lessons on The Waters of Lake Champlain
Report By: Amy Ash Nixon, VTDIGGER.COM
BURLINGTON – Students from local schools are learning the ropes through a new science, math, engineering and technology program on Lake Champlain.
The Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center has offered on-craft courses since 2008, and recently created a new program, Floating Classrooms, that gives more than 900 students a year an opportunity to apply their science and math knowledge as they sail across the lake.
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Top Ten Summer Camps (Countrywide)
Report By: Famadillo.com
At the Burlington Waterfront on the shores of Lake Champlain, the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center offers a wide array of kids camps. Each camp has a sailing component, but the multi-activity camps allow children to experience the unique sport of sailing while also receiving lessons in rockclimbing, skateboarding or healthy cooking. In “Cooking and Sailing”, for example, campers (age 9-12) spend the morning sailing and the afternoon exploring organic and local culinary pursuits at the Healthy Living Market and Cafe.
Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center unveils floating art gallery
Report By: Vermont Business Magazine
The Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center, in partnership with Dealer.com, unveiled on Thursday evening the first ever Floating Gallery – a collection of original artwork printed on sailboat sails. The product of an eight-month long project, Floating Gallery features work by four local artists – Scott A Campbell, Michael Sipe, Abby Manock, and Mary Lacy – all with a vision to create a one-of-a-kind waterfront experience for the Burlington community.
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Lake Champlain sailboats receive extreme makeover
Report By: Keith McGilvery, WCAX
BURLINGTON, Vt. –
The shores of Lake Champlain are getting a bit more colorful in the Queen City.
The Lake Champlain Sailing Center and Dealer.com unveiled extreme makeovers to four sailboats. Area artists had the unique opportunity to use these brand new sails as their canvases to display their talents.
The massive murals will be on display whenever the boats hit the water as part of classes or other center sponsored events.
“These are some of the biggest canvases available, certainly on the waterfront, they’re 24-feet tall, 11-feet wide and triangular, and so except for Mary Lacy’s hummingbird on a three-story building in Burlington, there are few places artists have an opportunity for a canvas of this scale,” said Mark Naud, Lake Champlain Sailing Center executive director.
The new floating gallery was eight months in the making. The center hopes it will continue to grow as more new sails are added to the fleet.
Read more here!
Northern VT HS Sailing Team Hits the Lake
Report by Mike Curkov, mychamplainvalley.com (abc22/Fox44)
Burlington, VT — This week at the Community Sailing Center on Burlington’s waterfront, the Northern Vermont high school sailing team raised their sails for the first time this year. They may not play under the lights, but there’s just as much athleticism, teamwork and positional expertise as any sport.
“There’s two people. One is the crew.” said Rice Memorial sophomore and NVHSST member Darcy Lavoie. “They usually control the jib. And if there’s a spinecker, they control the spinecker. Which is another sail. Then the skipper steers the boat.”
“When the wind picks up, you really get moving out there and things can go bad pretty fast if you’re not on top of it.” said Ben Hunt, Burlington High School junior. “You just really have to concentrate and you’re working out your mind as well as your body.”
“It’s really just a sport for every single person out there sitting in a boat.” said Community Sailing Center Associate Director Jen Guimaraes. “So, we have sailors that are tall, short, broad shouldered, skinny. It’s neat because it brings together such a diverse group of students.”
The students are diverse in many aspects, including their school. The NVHSST is made up of sailors from CVU, Burlington, South Burlington, Rice Memorial, Essex, Colchester and some home schooled students.
“I think it’s great.” said Hunt. “I meet a lot of people that I wouldn’t meet at school. It’s a different crowd. Other teams, it’s pretty much just your school. You’re not meeting people from other schools as much. It really brings the whole community together.”
“Without the help of grant support that we write each year, we wouldn’t be able to run such a big conglomerate team.” said Guimaraes.
The team’s first regatta is 9/7 at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME.
Adaptive Sailing Clinic on Burlington’s Waterfront
Report By: Christine Sounders, My Champlain Valley.com
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Any person, any age, any skill level can learn to sail.
That’s the message behind one unique clinic.
Sunday, the Sailing Center teamed up with the Adaptive Sailing Clinic to make that a reality.
ABC22’s Chief Photojournalist Steve Longchamp takes us to Lake Champlain for an up close look at these promising sailors in action.
“We’re doing an Adaptive Sailing Clinic to generate interest for our programs. We’re trying to get more disabled sailors involved in the programs. We have two Martin 16 sailboats that we sail at Mallett’s Bay and there’s two Martin 16 sailboats at the Community Sailing Center, so there’s a lot of opportunities for people with disabilities to sail,” said Brad Stevenson, a disabled sailor.
“We like to say that we leave our dependence on the docks, you know when we go out sailing. That you’re out there and it’s just you and the boat and the wind and the water. And the boat’s designed so that it minimizes any of the physical components of sailing so that you are the skipper and working directly with nature and the elements at that point. There’s nothing more liberating than that,” said Patrick Standen with Northeast Disabled Athletic Association.
