Become a Sailor in One Weekend IV
This is the final installment of my personal history of Annapolis Sailing School. Since there is a lot of time covered here and I’m depending on memory, that most inaccurate of sources, my apologies if I have overlooked any important events.
Recovery from the hurricane took some time. It was more than a year before any hotel rooms were available in the islands because they were full of construction workers working on rebuilding. This limited the Rainbow courses we could run, but we did manage to run enough cruising courses to continue operations at the St. Croix branch, although at a reduced level. Overall the enrollment numbers kept up their gradual decline so we began exploring new revenue streams.
One was a new venture, the establishment of the Annapolis Powerboat School in the mid-90’s. We had the Bertram recovered from St. Croix and a Crosby 30 to use as instructional platforms and we shortly purchased a used Luhrs 28 as well. We ran both weekend courses and five day live aboard cruises on the powerboats, patterned pretty much on the sailing school courses. This effort was moderately successful. We approached several of the larger brokerages with the idea of bundling a one day on the water introductory course for the new owners with the purchase of a powerboat. The reception to this idea from the powerboat brokers was less than enthusiastic. The conventional wisdom in the powerboat field was that powerboaters did not seek instruction and that to offer it was a bar to sales. One of our good friends at a major brokerage in town put it this way: “I can teach new owners everything they need to know when I give them the keys.” I used to enjoy telling the brokers about how often we had heard a wife say, as the couple were registering for the introductory powerboat course, “I told him I wasn’t getting back on that thing until he learned what he was doing!” So much for conventional wisdom!
As the powerboat school developed, we found the most popular offering we had was private instruction on an owner’s boat. This was easy to do and the overhead costs were minimal. As our powerboats began to show their age, we developed a working relationship with the Chesapeake Boat Club across Back Creek. They had a charter fleet of Albin 27 diesel powered small trawlers. We would charter an Albin, put an instructor on board and run our introductory weekend course on that boat. At the end of the weekend, we returned the boat. Again, this approach reduced our overhead costs. We found that many students seemed to be much more at ease with the smaller, simpler boat as well.
The first In the Water Sailboat Show was in October of 1970. It was an immediate hit and we added the Powerboat Show in 1972. Once I joined the Wood’s organization as General Manager, I found my job included some show responsibilities as well as the school. From the very beginning the Sailing School served as the service company for the Boat Shows. We provided all the logistic and manpower support needed by the shows. We built and stored the docks and temporary pilings and the old Tidewater Boats factory was pressed into service to produce and store nearly everything needed to stage the shows. By the mid-90’s about half of my time was devoted to the shows.
Some time around the middle of the decade, we began to consider adding a junior program. The various yacht clubs around us and some sailing associations had junior programs, mostly taught in Optimist prams and oriented toward competitive racing. Since we identified with recreational sailing, we did not want to go that route. There was a Program called KidShip that had been around Annapolis for a few years. Rumor had it that Nan Leute, the founder of the program, might be interested in selling. So, during the Sailboat Show in October of 1996, Nan and I met and worked out a deal. Annapolis Sailing School would become the owner of the KidShip name, the curriculum, the mailing and graduate lists, and the half dozen Sea Snarks. For those of you who have never heard of Sea Snarks, they were small sailing dinghies. They looked like a cross between a sailboard and a Styrofoam cooler The were very cheap and were made of unsealed Styrofoam. Wherever you went they left a trail of Styrofoam granules in your wake. When we took possession, they went right into the dumpster. And, almost as an aside, Nan mentioned that KidShip had hosted and supported the Brendan Sailing Project for Youth with Learning Disabilities, and I might want to get in touch with Mr. Muldoon.
So, the next morning we had a junior program with no boats and an implied commitment to support a nonprofit program, also with no boats. I picked up the phone and called Mr. Muldoon. We had a very long and pleasant chat. What came out of it was an agreement that Annapolis Sailing School would continue to host and support Brendan. The Brendan Project would buy four sailing dinghies. The Sailing School would store and maintain the boats and would use them for our KidShip program, and make them available to Brendan for their program. That basic cooperative arrangement is still in effect.
Despite these efforts at diversification our enrollment numbers continued to slump. We closed our one boat branch on Long Island Sound. Toward the end of the nineties, our San Diego manager decided to retire. The branch had not been doing well, so we closed it. We brought the O’Day back to Annapolis and donated the Rainbows to a local sailing program. As the new century begin, the economic forces depressing our middle-class market continued unabated and our numbers reflected this. The period from 2000 to 2006, when I retired, was a time of tremendous change for the Sailing School. Our last two branches, St. Croix and St. Petersburg were closed. In the spring of 2003 Jerry Wood passed away. In September we had a visit from Hurricane Isabel with twelve foot storm surge. Kathy Wood, who had always been fully involved in the businesses, took over both the Sailing School and the Boat Show’s management and continued to supervise most of the organization’s operations. In early 2005, Kathy Wood passed away unexpectedly. As part of settling the estate, the relationship between the sailing School and the boat shows was dissolved. I stayed around to help with the process of selling off the assets and when that was complete, it was clearly time to go. I retired in July of 2006 after 38 years.
It was quite a ride!
Editor’s Note:
Wow, what a history! Jenny and Rick Nelson, owners of the Annapolis Sailing School, want say “Thank You” Rick Franke for retelling the history of the School, and more importantly for being an integral part in creating the legacy. In the 1950’s learning to sail meant being a waterman on a working boat or a member of a yacht club. As the first recreational sailing school in the country, the Annapolis Sailing School ushered in an era where anyone can learn to sail and have access to boats, our “Seriously Fun” mission we continue today. Rick’s recounting ends with the business headwinds of the early 2000’s. But sailing is all about being able to sail upwind and through challenges, as long as one has the right principles and a good crew. With great employees, students and community, the School is doing well in the 2020’s and honoring its legacy.
As for Rick Franke, his good deeds will continue to be rewarded (punished?!). In October he will be in Chicago to speak as the National Sailing Hall of Fame inducts Annapolis Sailing School’s founder Jerry Wood as a member for his contributions to sailing. And Mr. Franke will also be telling one more story (at least 🙂 ) in October at the Sailing School as we screen a movie that involves a very special student of Rick’s. Be on the watch for details of our Annapolis Sailboat Show weekend event where we celebrate our students.