MITNA Burgee MIT Sailing - Reports & Newsletters

Sailing Master's Report to the MIT Nautical Association February 1999

Mission

The Sailing Pavilion provides opportunities for students, alumni, faculty and staff to pursue recreation and to relieve stress in the context of an intense educational experience. Self-assessment and professional guidance are both employed to assist everyone in improving and developing their sailing skills. The Pavilion and its programs provide the opportunity to learn a life long skill in a safe recreational environment.

Relationship to Task Force Recommendations

The Sailing Pavilion brings members of the MIT community together in a unique way to learn teamwork, build self confidence and encourage perseverance. Sailing requires complex tactical thinking coupled with athletic ability. Vector physics, knowledge of weather, agility, balance, intelligence, and the ability to make decisions without hesitation are all a part of successful sailing. Members of the MIT Nautical Association are encouraged to ask questions and to learn by doing. Sailing is absorbing, exciting and intellectually rewarding. Countless alumni(ae) have remarked, upon returning to MIT for a visit, that their sailing experience was the most enjoyable aspect of their life at MIT. Graduate, undergraduate, faculty and alumni interaction is ongoing at the Sailing Pavilion. The Pavilion offers one of the most relaxed community atmospheres on campus for people to recreate, eat lunch, or host an informal reception. It is a resource that offers a respite for all.

The Recreational and Physical Education Program

1998 Statistics

Activities

MIT Groups that Use the Facility & Equipment

Community Service

The Sailing Teams and Intercollegiate Athletics

MIT has a distinguished history of making great sailboat racers from students who have little to no sailing experience before arriving in Cambridge. Many MIT students have had limited exposure to sports activities. These students, having had tremendous success in the classroom, are wonderful students of sailboat racing. Their abilities to think geometrically and to apply themselves as hard on the water as they do in a class have allowed MIT sailors to rise to become Olympic and world class competitors. Sailboat racing requires team members to develop individual skills. While doing so, they practice against their fellow teammates to simulate racing regatta situations. Success is not measured against a clock or a tape measure. Rather, it is determined as to how one finishes relative to the rest of the fleet at the finish line. The team is measured by the sum of its individual performances. Students who learn how to race sailboats at MIT graduate not only with a skill that they can use for an entire lifetime but, more importantly, they leave with a heightened self-confidence in their ability to achieve goals.

The Sailing Team budgets have remained flat for over ten years. In order to compensate for this, measures have been taken to keep travel expenses at a minimum. For example, second string and freshmen sailors only compete in the local Boston area and they do so without a coach. During the past calendar year the teams had to forego competing in the New England Team Race Championship, the George Owen Trophy, the Navy Women's Fall Intersectional Regatta, and the Freshmen New England Championship, due to budget constraints. Other comparable Coed and Women's Sailing teams (Harvard, Connecticut College, Coast Guard Academy, Tufts, St. Mary's College, College of Charleston and Stanford) spend four to eight times the amount of MIT's annual travel budget. The Athletic Department Team Travel allocates $3,244 and $5,480 for women and coed sailing team travel budgets respectively. Championship expenses are met with post season budget funds for either team as needed.

The Facility

The MIT Sailing Pavilion was built in 1935 and is the oldest intercollegiate sailing facility in the country. College sailing began here under the direction of Jack Wood, Prof. George Owen and Prof. Erwin Schell. Situated directly across from the main campus, it is convenient for all members of the community to access. The physical structure is, unfortunately, in a deteriorated state of neglect and outdatedness. It is overdue for renovations. There are no showers and no workout space, and little storage capcity exists. The shop area is wholly inadequate and must cofunction with classroom and food preparation areas. The roof leaks, bay doors are rotting, and the floors have holes with cracked and broken linoleum. Over 50% of the Pavilion's users are women and they have a 6'x 10'changing room, while the men have a 24' x 24' changing room. Rats have infested the east roof flower boxes next to the trash bags.

The state has lowered the mean level of the Charles River in order to reduce the risk of Back Bay flooding. Consequently, launching and retrieving boats is strenuous and frequently unsafe because the fixed dock level is too high in relation to the present water level. We need to modify our fixed dock to a fixed/floating combination in order to make the operations safe again. The capital fund raising campaign for MIT was postponed for a year. One of the goals of this effort is a 2 million dollar renovation and expansion of the Jack Wood Sailing Pavilion.

The Fleet and Capital Equipment - See Appendix

At present funding levels we need to focus on basic recreational and competitive sailing and scale back the various types of sailing disciplines offered. All of the Olympic class sailboats and sailboards should be liquidated. The Laser fleet should be pared back to ten boats (from 18) and these should be replaced at a rate of two per year. One of the Rhodes sloops should be sold to reduce maintenance. The new sails should be retained as a matched backup set. All of the cradles need to be replaced immediately. Ocean sailing needs to be reviewed because of the expense and time commitment associated with it. Eliminating the ocean sailing reduces our liability exposure and allows the revenue generated by the Evans Fund to be used to enhance the competitiveness of the sailing teams. Tech Dinghies get a tremendous amount of hard use from all facets of the program. Physical education classes and summer day camp are particularly rough on these boats. New Tech Dinghies should be on hand before the Spring of 2000. New specifications which should increase the life of each boat will include more flotation tanks, resilient vinylester resin (as opposed to polyester), and perhaps bow fenders and drainage plugs.

Staffing

The huge volume of people introduced to the sport at the sailing pavilion is testament to the dedicated staff and volunteers. This is especially remarkable when one recognizes that only the two coaches receive full time benefits at MIT, while many more work full time without benefits to ensure the program's continued success. Certainly, the cornerstone of the Pavilion's success is the multitude of volunteers who help in so many ways. The ROTC crowd have assisted in sloop and motorboat launching for the past two Springs. Corey Baker, Iliana Fujimori, Howard Davis, David Parks, Dwight Brown were dedicated in their service to the learn-to-sail-lessons throughout the year. Countless weekends were given up by John Pratt, Ellen Pratt, Sue Ostrowski, Eric Gibber, David Ryan, and Hatch Brown to help MIT continue to host intercollegiate events and, arguably, the best run regattas too. Matthew Wall, Christopher Hirsch and Leon Abulafia were a core group of volunteers helping to sustain and upgrade 'Aleida' this season. Day Camp was fabulously successful because of Ellen Pratt's sound leadership. She was ably assisted by Dwight Brown, Nick Finch and Mike Bottoms. Operating a program of this magnitude cannot be done safely by only two full-time persons. Student staffing on weekends and weekday evenings needs to be carefully supervised by someone with responsibility and experience. Presently this is a voucher position with no staff benefits or privileges. Boat and equipment repair is impossible to keep up with at current staffing levels. Coaches have little time to stay up with boat maintenance during the long intercollegiate seasons. They are working 70 to 90 hours a week during the intercollegiate seasons and 50 to 60 hours per week during the off peak, winter and summer seasons. The part time boat rigger works 22 hours at the Pierce Boathouse, MIT's rowing center and 30 to 40 hours at the Sailing Pavilion. His status should be upgraded to full-time with the related benefits package.

Sailing Master and Assistant Sailing Master

Twelvee month administrative, non-faculty appointments, head coaches and PE instructors funded by the Athletic Department Coaches' budget.

Responsibilities:

Boat Maintenance Rigger

One part time position. Presently 18 hours per week are funded by the Athletic Service Staff budget.

Responsibilities:

Maintain the fleet of over 110 boats, wire and rope rigging, fiberglass structural repairs, motorboat maintenance.

Dockmaster

One full time position, no benefits. Funded by user fees and alum contributions.

Responsibilities: Coordinates with athletic business office on team travel budget and transportation needs, handles pavilion dockstaff training, payroll, coordinate purchasing and AP matters with Athletics, updates handouts, coordinates fundraising newsletter and processes donations through the Alumni or Treasurers' offices, assists in teaching physical education sailing as well as club learn-to-sail lessons, maintains the Pavilion website and is making it more interactive for signups.

Student and Voucher Dockstaff

Student staffing is necessary to safely operate the program while the coaches are not available for assistance or rescues. Practice hours and weekends during the intercollegiate season as well as evenings and weekends during the summer months. This is approx. 80 hours weekly or 2900 hours for the entire sailing season. This is funded by user fees and alum contributions.

Assistant Sailing Coaches

Spring and Fall seasons present opportunities for the members of the sailing team to compete on the weekends. The head coaches always go with the top 4 students from the womens and varsity teams. The freshmen and the next level down currently go to regattas at home or nearby without any coach at all. It is imperative to make the best use of this race time by providing them insight and advice on their performance. 350 hours for both seasons. Funded by user fees and alumni contributions.

Summer Day Camp Assistant

During the summer months, both coaches frequently travel to sailing competitions or take personal time off. Day Camp sends down between 40-50 children twice weekly for eight weeks. In order to maintain adequate levels of safe student:teacher ratios it is imperative to have another staff person on hand during those seven hours/week. This would let us maintain a minimum of a 15:1 ratio if one coach was not on hand. Not funded presently.

Summary

Program cost allocations

The sailing master has just completed a cost analysis of each of the programs that the sailing pavilion is responsible for operating. Breaking down the number of hours spent during the different seasons as well as the fair allocation of maintenance and depreciation on capital equipment made this a formidable task. The conclusions have not been interpreted but, it is a starting point. It is obvious, however, that the sailing pavilion needs a greater commitment from the present users (not just MITNA) in order to maintain these types of programs.

Operating Expenses of all programs at the Sailing Pavilion: $279,915

Breakdown by Allocated Costs:
$ 83,637. Recreational Sailing
$ 43,430. Physical Education
$126,872. Intercollegiate Athletics
$ 14,637. Day Camp
$ 11,609. Community Service
Sources of Revenue:
$135,000. Athletic Dept. Salaries, wages and overhead
$ 35,000. Sailing Card Revenue
$ 4,500. Ralph Evans Fund Earnings
$ 5,500. Athletic Utility Account
$ 8,700. Intercollegiate Travel Budget
$ 40,000. Alumni Contributions (approx)

Shortfall of Revenue for Operations: $ 51,215.

Capital Equipment Needs in this year: $217,400.

$180,000. Tech Dinghy mold work and new boats
$ 13,000. Tech Storm Sails
$ 4,800. R-19 Cradles
$ 1,900. 420 Sails
$ 4,200. Dock Bunkers
$ 12,000. Boston Whaler
$ 1,500. Lifejackets

A Campaign for the Pavilion in 1999

The sailing pavilion operation needs to forge a commitment from the users, the Athletic Department, ODSUE and the alumni(ae). It is a common fact that nothing happens very quickly at the Institute. We need to embark on a capital campaign that will allow all of the fabulous programs that are offered at this unique facility to continue to exist. Assembling a fundraising committee is the first step. Analyzing the near term operational needs as well as the equipment requirements over the next ten years will help us define some goals. Low cost accessibility to the sport was the foundation that Jack Wood built this propgram on in 1936. Hopefully, we will be able to continue to provide those same opportunities for years to come.

In the next two weeks we need your help in forming a fundraising group of alumni and friends. MITNA members need to assist in databasing the sailing cards so we can contact prospective donors. Perhaps, the committee will then develop strategies for communicating our needs. Time is of the essence. We will be forced to cut back staffing as well as programs offered, if we don't stabilize the financial position of the sailing pavilion.

MITNA Burgee

Contact: sailing-request@mit.edu or (617) 253-4884

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Thursday, 27-Mar-2003 20:12:06 EST, by plam