Spring hasn’t sprung as yet Up North but it’s close. In about 10 days all of the trees and shrubs ought to be pretty green and the weather should be warm enough to start biking again on a regular basis. The sailors are coming out of their winter seclusion.

The summer racing schedule is out for the Yngling fleet with the first frigid race starting at 6 p.m. May 25. Typically, there won’t be too many boats in the first race due mostly to procrastination of hauling the boats out of their winter nesting places. Some of that slow set-up is do to the fact the water in Lake Huron still is quite cool.

Alpena Youth Sailing Club’s initial program will start after school is out as our instructors – Cayman Nelson, Hannah Thayer, Aaron Diamond and Evan Thayer – have to attend classes until mid-June. These instructors are returning from last year and their experience virtually guarantees the success of training beginning sailors.

The price of $95/week is the same as last year. The dock and meeting place will be behind R.S. Scott Engineering on the south riverbank, making a safe and secure site for sailing in the protected waters of the turning basin in the Thunder Bay River. The participants in this program generally are aged from about 7-14 years old.

Some of the older sailors in junior high or high school want to race, so the Yngling race training program will be back again this year for those just starting as well as those through college age. That program is six weeks long starting the last week in June through the first week in August. It’s Tuesday and Thursday each week from 5 p.m. until 8 or 8:30 p.m. This year there are some staff changes.

Dr. Mark Upham has some other maritime commitments this summer and we will be missing his expertise. I’m going to be the lead person on the water this year, but don’t fret, I have some wonderful sailors helping out. Ed Kavanaugh is back one night a week, Erik Smith is coming out of retirement to aid us when his duties at the Sheriff’s Office allow, and Pete Simpson will be in the coach’s boat too. I would sail at any time, on any water, in any condition with any of these men and feel safe. They are all great sailors and experienced racers.

We will miss Mark but his work in setting up the program will give us a very strong framework upon which to build.

The price of racing is $175 for the season. Pete Wilson, who guards the money as treasurer, tells me that we have a suitable balance in our checking account but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t accept a donation if it were offered. In all likelihood, we will have more than 100 neophyte sailors in the river and as many as 12 in the Yngling racing program out on Thunder Bay.

If there are some beginners at 12 or 14 who want to be in the racing program, we can bring them up to speed in relatively short order. We have been training sailors for a while. We even have three or four former, very competitive sailors who have either had a baby or are expecting a birth this summer. So, in just six summers, grandma or grandpa might have them in the program. We might be self-sustaining.