Youngsters to Unfurl New Skills at Regatta

Three weeks ago, most of the 12-year-old skippers on Westlake Lake had trouble figuring out how to raise a sail. This week, they skimmed confidently across the lake’s glittering surface, ready for a weekend regatta that will pit them against college champions.

Bill Vrooman was once one of the young sailors in the Westlake Yacht Club program, catching wind in an eight-foot-long, square-bowed boat called a sabot. He liked being out on the water so much that he joined the Navy.

After Vrooman died at the age of 20 in a car accident, his parents established the Vrooman Memorial Regatta in 1989. Since then, the event has grown from a small neighborhood race for young sailors in sabots into a major competition open to sailors of all ages in all classes of boats.

This year’s race has drawn a crowd so large--more than 40 boats hailing from Santa Barbara to Redondo Beach--that Clyde and Diette Vrooman are serving hamburgers instead of the traditional steaks at the post-race cookout.

That will probably be just fine for most sailors, notwithstanding the sport’s upper-class reputation and the yacht club’s “members only” signs.

A visit to the club this week revealed that at least on Westlake Lake, yachting attire for 12-year-olds and teen-agers tends more toward cutoff denim shorts and flip-flop sandals than brass-buttoned blazers and Topsiders.

A youth membership in the club costs $50 a year, and the race entry fee is $5, said Paul Artof, a Westlake Village stockbroker who serves as the club’s commodore. The club owns a fleet of sabots, so beginners do not have to buy their own. The club also recently spent almost $10,000 to purchase three boats for the Westlake High School and Agoura High School sailing teams.

“Sailing is a wonderful sport for kids,” Artof said. “It’s very tactical. It’s very abstract.”

Westlake Lake, which straddles the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, proves a challenging course, with frequent shifts taxing the wits of youthful sailors.

Earlier this week, the sailing students, ages 8 to 14, focused more on winning an afternoon scavenger hunt than on the upcoming race. Like water bugs, they zipped from one side of the lake to another, gathering sand from a beach and Tootsie Roll candies from Lindsay’s electric chase boat. Some of the sailors came close to colliding with Lindsay’s boat. One capsized, and another ran aground. Most, however, seemed well on their way to yachting competency, if not the America’s Cup.