Step on Board : Sailing Center Teaches Beginners by the Bay

--Most board sailors are tall enough to walk their boards into the water to get started.

But Robin Morrissey, who’s 13 years old, is barely 4 1/2 feet tall and, because the wind was blowing toward the shore, she had to get on her board and paddle her way out.

This was her chance to show what she had learned during a week-long stay in the San Diego Sailing Center’s board-sailing camp at Santa Clara Point on Mission Bay.

The paddling wasn’t easy. The sail lying in the water creates more than a little drag, and she was already tuckered out after hauling her sail down to the edge of the water. It’s not easy to carry something bigger than you are, even for short distances.

“Are you OK?” one of her instructors asked.

“I’ll be all right,” she shouted. “Just give me a chance to get started.”

Nobody was about to interfere.

After about a five-minute battle, Robin was in position to get started.

Then, another tough part. She had to stand up, reach over, grab the rope that is attached to mast of the sail and pull it up out of the water.

It was a bit heavy for Robin, so she had to lean back, being careful to balance herself against the weight of the sail.

After another two-minute exercise, the sail was up.

That’s all it took. The wind was blowing, and off Robin went.

A little ways down the water, she came upon a man who had turned his sail into the wind and was dead in the water. Robin sailed by, and a spark of confidence sailed on to her face.

For the next hour or so, Robin was gone, off sailing in the bay.

Since 1971, when Hoyle Schweitzer, a computer engineer from Orange County, invented the first wind surfer board, many Southern Californians have spent afternoons board sailing.

Tom Goddard, 22, is one such sailor. Goddard, who grew up in San Diego and still lives here, has been board sailing since the sport was invented.

Of course, he has become pretty good since then, and now he spends much of his time teaching the sport rather than participating.

And he picked a pretty good place to do it.

For the last five years in a row, the sailing center at Santa Clara Point has been declared the top teaching school in the world by the International Wind Surfer Sailing Assn. In six years, more than 15,000 people have taken the course.

So it’s no wonder that Goddard is constantly busy.

When he was learning, there were few teachers, so he had to pick it up gradually.

The fact that he originally learned in Hawaii, where the waves are bigger and wind whips up faster, didn’t make it any easier.

“At first, I was bad because I didn’t know what I was doing,” Goddard said. “I needed to take some lessons, but there really weren’t any.

“These guys on the beach at Maui had a few boards and were offering classes to help pay for their own hobby. But I went down there. They told me a few things for about five minutes, and then they said, ‘Go for it.’ For about an hour or so, I just got knocked around out there.”

But he stuck with it, and nowadays, Goddard rarely gets knocked around. In fact, since he learned in Hawaii, he rarely has troubles in the calmer waters of San Diego.

Of course, sailing on a calm morning in Mission Bay is worlds apart from gaining the proficiency to handle gusty winds and choppy surface conditions.

“Board sailing can be like night and day,” Goddard said. “But that’s what’s great about this sport. One day, I’ll be out there in the surf doing flips on the waves, and the next I’ll just be out there on a calm bay sailing around. You can always find something fun to do in each circumstance.”

In fact, Goddard can even find fun in teaching.

On weekends during the summer, Santa Clara Point can become so crowded, it may be difficult just to find a place to put a board in the water.

“I’ve seen it where you could hop from board to board and get across the bay without getting wet,” Goddard said.

So Goddard enjoys his weekday classes the most.

“A lot of people don’t want to get involved because they think it’s going to be so difficult,” he said. “But once we get these people going, they don’t ever want to stop. It’s almost unfair how much fun you can have.”

Students arrive in the morning and learn about how to work with the wind. It’s important to learn where to keep the sail in relation to the wind.

“After sailing on a sail board, I would say any of these people could sail any sailboat,” Goddard said. “This can be a little tougher because, while you’re judging the wind, you also have to be judging the water underneath you.”

The sailing center comes equipped with a land-simulation sail board on the grassy knoll just above the inlet at the point. The students have to get on the board there and learn how to move the sail before they head for the water.

By then, most of the sailors are ready to go.

Goddard goes down to the shore to help one young woman get her sail upright. Once done, off she goes, but not before turning toward the shore to pose for a snapshot for her boyfriend.

She has been the last to go, and all of a sudden, Goddard is left with little to do.

“That’s the only problem with these classes,” he says. “It’s so easy for these people, that I just have to sit here and watch them sail.”

Well, not always.

On this day, the students have become courageous, and they are off sailing in the bay, which is out of bounds to the newcomers.

“These people start to thinking they’re pretty good,” Goddard says. “I’ll be right back, I’ve got to go get these people.”

And off Goddard goes.

For somebody like Tom Goddard, board sailing can get a little boring in the bay. After a while, he needs something more challenging.

That’s why, on weekends, he and his friends will call some buddies down in Mexico to see how the wind is. When the wind is roaring, off they go.

“Heck, when it’s right, I’ll even try to get off work and switch a day with another instructor,” he says. “Down there, the winds can really start whipping up.”

Things can get pretty exciting in Mission Bay, too.

When there’s a storm coming, veteran board sailors rise early and go to the bay. The winds and the stormy weather can make for a challenging ride.

“Once you learn the basics, the sport can be what you want it to be,” said Jim Drennen, who works at the sailing center. “After people get through with a class, they get a board sailing certification card and they can sail anywhere they want.

“Some people are just content with coming down once in a while and renting a board for an hour. Others get into it and buy their own boards and learn how to surf in the waves.”

Goddard is so interested in board sailing that he has made some of his own boards. And, by putting a lot of time into it, he has become quite adept.

“People see other people just sailing along in the water and think it could get boring,” Goddard said. “But in the bay, it can be a lot of fun to race somebody else. You see somebody going faster than you, and you see what they are doing. Then you apply it yourself, and then you can go faster.”

Some can go very fast. Frenchman Pascal Maka set the world record of 44 m.p.h. six months ago near the Canary Islands.

“The way I look at it, it can take somebody 20 or 30 years to learn how to perfect a golf swing,” Drennen said. “You can learn how to board sail in a couple of hours. After that, it’s up to you as to how quickly you want to improve yourself.”

Goddard said it took him only two or three years to learn how to sail well in the choppy winds and waves of Mexico. After about six months, he was able to surf his sail board successfully at Tourmaline Surf Park in Pacific Beach, a hot spot among San Diego-area wind surfers.

About an hour has gone by, and here comes Robin Morrissey. The smile on her face is from ear to ear.

An instructor goes over to help her out of the water, and she smiles again.

“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” she says. “That was a lot of fun.”