Kansas sailing club marks 50 years

Membership to a yacht club often conjures an image of someone wealthy sporting a pair of Sperrys.

The Ninnescah Sailing Association, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, does all it can to quell such preconceived notions.

“There’s this idea that members have a lot of money, that we’re an exclusive club, that we wear white hats and blue blazers,” said sailing instructor Kent Carter.

“I don’t even own a blue blazer,” piped up Gregg Greenwood.

“And that’s part of the reason we changed our name from the Ninnescah Yacht Club to the Ninnescah Sailing Association,” Carter continued.

The name change came in the mid-1990s to let people know that the sailing association – based at Cheney Reservoir – is “open to all folks of all economic levels,” he said.

That can be seen in the group’s humble beginnings. The group built its activity center from the ground up with volunteers working nights and weekends. Some of the initial members took out group loans to fund the first set of slips.

“We were called a yacht club, but we didn’t have any yachts,” said Allyn Lamb, one of two members who has been with the association since its inception. “We didn’t even have docks at first, so we pushed our boats out of the mud, and away we went.”

The construction of Cheney, which opened in 1965, was out of necessity. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation and the city of Wichita formed a joint partnership to fund construction of the reservoir, which now provides the city with 70 percent of its water supply.

The miles of shoreline are an added perk. Before that, Wichita-area sailors had to drive to Grand Lake in Oklahoma, Greenwood said.

Now, accommodations for sailing are about 30 miles from downtown Wichita. Not bad for a state with no natural lakes of sailing size, said Nathan Westrup of the Kansas Water Office.

In the past five decades, the nonprofit organization grew from eight members to today’s 180. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

In 2012, the group reached a record 220 members, but as the water levels at Cheney dropped, so did membership. Most boats were removed from the slips by midsummer. The slips themselves remained in mud until after the first half of 2013.

“In Kansas, it seems like we have too much or too little rain,” Greenwood said. “Once in 50 years isn’t bad.”

Still, drought is a constant concern for the club. Property manager Patrick Adams said the city takes 70 million to 80 million gallons of water daily out of Cheney Reservoir. On those sweltering days in August, the lake loses the same amount through evaporation.

Greenwood, the club’s commodore, said the association is building membership back up to where it used to be. Part of the draw: Cheney is one of the windiest lakes in the nation, Greenwood said. Experienced sailors looking for a challenge won’t be bored on Cheney’s waters.

Several national sailing regattas have been hosted there. And the association has pumped out several national and world-class regatta champions, Adams said.

Rookies need not be intimidated. The lack of big waves such as one might find on the Great Lakes or the ocean also makes Cheney an ideal place for beginners. The association offers sailing instruction for anyone interested in learning to weather the wind and water.

For the first time this summer, the group is offering a beginning sailing course for adults. The Red Cross taught an adults-only program on Cheney until it was discontinued nationally last fall.

Carter, the sailing instructor, got involved in the sport as a Red Cross volunteer. The organization was looking to teach others, so Carter was sent to aquatic school.

Soon after, he became a member of the sailing association and, after the discontinuation of the Red Cross program, encouraged the group to fill the community’s need for an adult sailing program.

“What better way to build membership?” he asked.

He estimated more than 95 percent of the adults he teaches have no sailing experience. The group provides the boats and equipment for the three-day course, and participants who complete the program are eligible for club membership at half-price and no initiation fee.

Even after initiation, there are ways for members to curb costs. Many beginners start small, forgoing the cost of a slip and buying a small boat instead. Members can work off half of their dues through the work credit program.

The enjoyment from sailing seems to outweigh the cost for members.

“There’s just something about being out on the water without an engine and having to get from Point A to Point B,” Greenwood said. “People love it.”

This story was originally published June 18, 2015 at 7:29 AM with the headline "Kansas sailing club marks 50 years."