Bon Voyage

For more than two decades, Leo Robbins has been as much a part of Ventura’s Marina Park as the sabots and skiffs that meander about the turquoise lagoon.

On Monday, after 25 years at the helm of the Ventura Sailing Program, the spry octogenarian stepped down during a ceremony attended by former students, instructors and other sailing enthusiasts at Ventura City Hall.

“I’m 80. I figure I should retire,” he said, laughing. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to leave it completely. I’ll still have to help out.”

What Robbins started back in 1972 with just five old boats and six students has blossomed into a program that introduced thousands to the relaxing pleasures and competitive ferocity of sailing.

Robbins got started when the program was just a plan at City Hall.

“I’d heard they were thinking of starting a program and I had just retired from my job, so I didn’t have anything else to do,” Robbins said. “Since then, I’ve worked with it nonstop.”

Robbins was a supervisor at the Southern California Gas Co. until retiring in 1972.

Those close to the program credit him for making it a success. Today, the school has more than 350 students and 27 boats of various sizes and designs and classes for sailors of all levels, including specialty courses like celestial navigation.

“He put a lot of heart and soul into this,” said Ken Evans, a volunteer instructor at the school and a former student. “A lot more of it than he had to.”

In addition to the scores of 8-foot sabots, the program has several 14-foot racing boats and even a 30-foot cruiser named the “Stiletto.”

Robbins, who grew up in Orange, has been sailing since he was 12. He never had any formal instruction and learned with his brother, Lloyd, 76, of Tustin by sticking a mast to an old skiff and reading a sailing handbook.

“Naturally, we capsized,” he quipped. “But that didn’t stop us. We’d just climb back in and try it again.”

After the two gained more experience, they began building boats so they could take jaunts to Catalina, the Santa Cruz Islands, and up along the coast.

“Our biggest was a 20 1/2-foot cruising sailboat,” Robbins said.

He and Lloyd built the boats at their home, using vertical grain fir and oak. In the early days, they even made their own sails.

“We didn’t have a skipper and first mate on the trips to the islands,” he quipped. “We just sort of did the whole thing together.”

Estimates range on how many people Robbins has taught to sail. He stopped counting at 5,000, and others put the number at 8,000 or more.

“The people, that’s what I’ll miss the most about the program,” Robbins said. “It was exciting when students learned they could make a boat go, turn it and dock it.”

Robbins will no longer teach classes, but he will work for the Ventura Maritime Assn. and find donated boats for the program. In addition, he’s anxious to help a friend restore a 20-foot wooden boat, the “Island Belle,” that he and his brother built more than 40 years ago.

“With a hull that’s 57 years old, it’s going to need a lot of work, but I’m looking forward to getting started,” he said.

Students and sailors alike said Robbins and the chase boat he used to supervise classes will be missed.

“It’s going to be different around here without him,” said Sheila Forsman, the program’s new director. “I told my husband just the other day that even though Leo’s a small man, I’m going to have some big shoes to fill.”

Times correspondent Scott Steepleton contributed to this story.

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FYI

To learn to sail, you may register by phone by calling the Ventura Community Services Department at 658-4726. You may also register in person at the community services office, 501 Poli St., Ventura.