Transcription of Janet Acker for the show Sailing Maine #151
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, show #151: “Sailing Maine.” Airing for the first time on Sunday, August 3, 2014. Summer is a great time to be on the water. Join our conversations with people who love navigating Maine waters by boat and have made it possible for others to do the same. Janet Acker and Jess McGreehan share their experience with Portland Sail Maine Organization and Matt Barton describes his rewarding transition from financial consultant to boat builder at the Hinckley Company by way of the Landing School. Thank you for joining us.
One of the things that I most enjoy doing myself is sailing and unfortunately,
I don’t get much of a chance to do it, but it’s something I learned as a camper and it’s something that’s stayed with me my whole life. The people who are here today, I’m very pleased that they get to enjoy this on a regular basis. We have Janet Acker. Janet has sailed her whole life and while living on the West Coast, she founded and developed a community-based sailing program known as “Sail Orcas.” Today she is the executive director of Sail Maine. On her time off she is an avid sailor with her husband. Thanks for coming in Janet.
Janet: Thank you very much.
Dr. Lisa: The other person we have with us is Jess McGreehan, who learned to sail at Sail Maine and later went on to race competitively in high school and college. She has worked as an adult instructor, junior program instructor and high school sailing coach at Sail Maine. This summer she will connect their sailing curriculum with environmental education. Thank you for coming in.
Jess: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Sailing, from what I can tell it’s a very interesting group of people who become so committed to something that … Well, it’s interesting. Boats, they take a lot of time, they take a lot of attention and yet people who love to sail, love to sail, are passionate about sailing. Why for each of you is this the case?
Janet: I started sailing very young as a family activity and I think many people start sailing within their family unit and so it becomes something that gives wonderful memories. Then as you grow up and you become an adult you carry that with you because sailing’s the kind of sport that isn’t something that you only do as a child or in high school or in college and then you put it away. It’s a lifelong sport. Anybody can sail, even people with handicaps can sail. I think that the other wonderful thing about sailing is that it can be coed. It could be competitive. It could be non-competitive. It could be a team sport. It could be an individual sport. There are so many different ways that you can enjoy sailing that it really opens up a lot to people in many, many different ways and many different age groups.
Dr. Lisa: What about you Jess?
Jess: Yeah, I think Janet touched upon a few things that I really feel passionate about with sailing and that is I really find that sailing offers a wide variety of experiences, from racing to just pleasure cruising to using it as a vehicle to explore new territory. Also, sailing is so full and rich of tradition dating back to original sailors and Polynesian navigation and investigation of new lands and new worlds, but also within family units. My family didn’t sail so I didn’t grow up sailing, but I feel really fortunate that I was brought into sailing via a non-traditional route, but kind of a new age and the tradition, which is community sailing and the idea that sailing can be for anyone. Your family doesn’t have to have a boat to be a sailor and to enjoy the water. There’s still ways to access the water.
Dr. Lisa: Community sailing is pretty fascinating because it does bring something that for some people might not have been accessible right into the community and
I think that’s what Sail Maine is trying to do.
Janet: Exactly. The whole purpose of Sail Main is to provide access to sailing and to the waters, specifically with Sail Maine of Casco Bay to people that don’t have other outlets for that. We make it affordable. We make it accessible to children and adults regardless of their ability to afford to have a boat or to sail. We try to bring as much diversity into the program as we can. We want to be sure that everyone who is a Portland resident knows that they can come and sale at Sail Maine regardless and we have lots of opportunities for that to happen.
Dr. Lisa: Sail Maine is located just right down the street from us.
Janet: Right down the street. It’s right down on the waterfront right next to the cruise ship terminal in Portland Yacht Services. We’re very open. It’s a small little spot, but we’re very open and we love to have people come through and see what we’re doing. I’m sure many people in the Portland area have seen the little sailboats down there in the summertime and the fall and the spring and wondered, “What’s going on down there?” But that’s Sail Maine.
We offer high school racing programs for the six area high schools in the greater Portland area. In the fall and the spring, each of those programs as nearly 100 students racing. Then we offer junior sailing during the summer months for kids from the age of five all the way through seventeen. Then we offer adult programming for adult lessons, “Learn to Sail,” “Learn to Race.” We also have new to us last year a fleet of J-22 keel boats that we rent to qualified adults to either race or just to go out and have a wonderful day sailing on a weekend or an evening and those are available to anyone can get certified best to have the skills to use these boats. We welcome everyone to come down and sail with us.
Dr. Lisa: When people are out walking around the trail at the bottom of the Eastern prom and they look over and they see the sailboats and the big sign that says “Sail Maine” that’s you.
Janet: That’s us.
Dr. Lisa: When were you founded? How long have you been in existence?
Janet: Sail Maine was founded in 1996, but it was sort of a smaller program, an adjunct, a little bit of the University of Southern Maine and it kind of stayed that way for a number of years, but within the last eight years is when it’s really exploded into a very, cohesive large program. We now have over a hundred boats and over the course of the year we’ll serve in one form or another, close to a thousand people.
Dr. Lisa: What was the impetus eight years ago or even as far back as 1996 to create this program? Who decided that this was an important thing that needed to be here in Portland?
Janet: There were a number of people in this area that felt strongly that Portland needed to have a community sailing program. There are a number of the yacht club programs around, but there wasn’t something that was open to everyone regardless of membership. A couple of those people that were involved in this, the genesis of this idea were Chris Robinson, Phineas Sprague and Wynn Fowler. Those three gentlemen came together in one form or another, planted the seed that has grown into Sail Maine.
Dr. Lisa: Phineas Sprague is the one who’s also responsible for the little railroad that runs down the bottom of the Eastern prom. Where did you grow up, Jess?
Jess: I grew up in South Portland so just across the bridge. I went to South Portland High School. There was a little bit of time where we were actually in Central Maine, which was probably the worst part of the family history and so everyone would say because we were so sad to be away from the ocean, but then we moved back to South Portland. As a freshman in high school, I was looking for something new to do and I saw a flyer somewhere and it said, “Learn How to Sail,” and back then it was a bit of a different program. We had only a few boats, maybe six boats at the time and it was a whole bunch of different high school students so Wayne Fleet, Yarmouth, Falmouth, Greeley, South Portland, Portland and I think there were about 12 of us total and we met at Sail Maine and we had a coach and learned to sail and learned to race.
Dr. Lisa: Your family wasn’t really a sailing family prior to that point?
Jess: Nope, nope. Yep, they don’t really enjoy sailing as much as I do, but they will humor me and allow me to take them out on the water, but they don’t really enjoy the thrills of “healing over,” which is when the boat tips to one side or tips to another. I’ve never made them cap size, of course, which is when the boat goes fully over, but I definitely enjoy … I enjoy the speed and the feeling of the boat connecting with the wind and the water and going fast. Well, it’s not their cup of tea.
Dr. Lisa: What was that like to be in a family of non-sailors? Janet, you came from a family of sailors so your experience was very different than yours, Jess?
Jess: Yeah. Back in the day my dad actually used to sail quite a bit and then he went away from the water and hasn’t really been back to the water, but I remember growing up hearing sailing stories. Going to bed he would tell us stories of when he was out on the water sailing and so I think actually the seed was planted a long, long time ago. I was always curious about the ocean and then when I got the opportunity to go sailing, for me it just feels like it all connects. It’s all there and there’s nothing like the feeling of being on the boat with the wind blowing through your hair and the water spraying up and the sun coming down or even rain. Rain’s fine and sometimes snow, you got to have that open attitude if you’re from Maine.
I would say that just because my family didn’t sail didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to be able to experience that and have my own time on the water. They were very supportive of me and they wanted to make sure I wore a life jacket and things like that, but otherwise, yeah, there was a lack of support from them.
It just turned into be something that “Jess did in the family.”
Dr. Lisa: I know when I was at Yarmouth there wasn’t anything to do with sailing or boats at the high school itself, which is sad because I probably would have liked to gravitate towards that. What’s really nice is that it has become very popular. Now we do have people who sail and we do have people who row crew and things like that. I think it just broadens the opportunity for people who, they want to be active, they want to be outdoors, but they don’t necessarily want to be playing soccer and they don’t necessarily want to be running. It just allows people to do something that just resonates more with them at a younger age.
Jess: Definitely. What Janet and I were saying earlier, there are a whole bunch of different ways to experience sailing. Whether you go the competitive route or you go the route of pleasure cruising or just using the vessel as a way of experiencing being on the water, that’s an option with sailing and that’s an option for our high school students and also, for our junior program, the younger sailors because not everyone is into the competitive aspect of racing. Just like if there’s a soccer team there could be a competitive side and then there could be a club team where people get together and just have fun.
Dr. Lisa: What have you noticed from people who have come up through the program Janet? How has it changed the way that they approach the world?
Janet: Sailing is such a great lesson for life skills. Kids come through a sailing program having tremendous self-confidence and self-reliance and the ability to troubleshoot and to manage chaos. A lot of sailing can be, not always, but chaos because the wind will shift or another boat will come very close to you or something like that and you have to figure out how to get yourself out of that situation.
I think kids learn very quickly how to manage stress, how to be self-reliant, how to think ahead because when they’re learning how to sail to a point and go around that point and they have to anticipate and look at three steps ahead of where they are now and it’s really truly a remarkable thing to see kids grow.
My favorite day of instructing kids is when you put a little seven-year-old, eight-year-old child in a little boat by themselves the first day and at the end of the first day they are sailing. It’s just incredible to go from zero to sixty in one day with these kids and the parents are blown away. The kids, they don’t know any better, so they’re just running around thinking it’s great. It’s just such an incredible thing to watch. That leap of experience falls so quickly and kids take to it very, very quickly. I would say 90% of kids take to it very quickly when they’re that young. I suppose like skiing.
The kids that go through our program tend to stay with us. They come back year after year after year. Then as they get into that age group they can then come back and have summer jobs with us, which is really wonderful. They come and learn how to be assistant instructors and then they come back and they’re full instructors and then they may go on to college and sail or they may just continue to sail recreationally. I think a lot of our students come through and they really buy-in to the whole thing and it stays with them for a very long time.
Dr. Lisa: Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we’ve long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shephard of Shephard Financial.
Tom: Sometimes I meet with married or partnered clients and when we get to talking about their financial lives, a cultural divide bubbles to the surface. One person feels one way about their money and the other seems to be on their own financial island with a set of beliefs and rules that have created unnecessary borders and boundaries. It’s not an uncommon thing. When I hit those situations I do my best to help both people understand that neither is 100% right or wrong. That they simply have to take a step back and look at their own financial life in a new light.
It is also true in politics and economics what we need to do is see money as a living thing that can be used to grow our lives together without disagreement or so-called “border issues.” It’s a great feeling for me. It’s like I’m helping people negotiate peace treaties with their money. Be in touch if you want to know more, Tom@ShephardfinancialMaine. We’ll help you evolve with your money.
Announcer: Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRAW SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shephard Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by Bangor Savings Bank. For over 150 years Bangor Savings has believed in the innate ability of the people of Maine to achieve their goals and dreams. Whether it’s personal finance, business banking or wealth management assistance you’re looking for, at Bangor Savings Bank you matter more. For more information visit www.Bangor.com.
Dr. Lisa: What about the teamwork and the teambuilding aspect to sailing? Is that something that you see as being a benefit to the people who are coming through.
Jess: Definitely. I know from my personal experience learning to sail and working at Sail Maine, teamwork has been a major lesson that I have learned. Through teamwork I have learned skills like competency because you have to be able to … My sailing coach used to say, “You have to have the skills to pay the bills.” So he would say, “Let’s learn how to do this skill really solidly,” and the whole team would work together, even though we were on separate boats, but we would work together to strengthen our individual skills, which then in turn strengthened the entire team.
I learned a lot about effective communication and how to not only communicate in a non-verbal way with someone that I was in a boat with just using body language to move the boat together in an efficient way, but also how to communicate with my team on the water and off the water, too. Definitely, learned a lot about what Janet was stating with judgment and decision-making. There’s times when as a sailor you have to be really decisive and directive and you don’t have time to consult anybody because the boat will tip over. Then there are other times where you say, “Well, maybe there’s some strategy that needs to go into this? What do you think we should do?”
We all consult because there are many, many ways to sail a boat and that is the really cool thing is when you start putting a whole bunch of people together on a boat, a whole bunch of individuals to become that team, you come up with a much bigger, brighter, better picture of a way to do something and that’s what I find really inspiring about working with others on a boat.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve both had the opportunity to sail in places other than Maine. What is it about Maine that is different and special?
Janet: Well, I think the fact that there are more miles of Maine coastline I think than there are of California or anywhere else. It is truly one of the most spectacular places to cruise in the world. People come from all over the world to charter here. It’s not without its difficulties though. Maine water is not like the Pacific Northwest in Washington State where it’s beautiful also, but it’s deep everywhere you go. Maine has lots of ledges and rocks and things to avoid so people have to be really on their game navigationally here in Maine, which is part of the challenge and part of the fun. I think a lot of the sailors enjoying that aspect of sailing. It’s the book work that has to go with the sailing part of it.
The most amazing thing about the coast of Maine is that you can be in a cove by yourself pretty much every night on a cruise and you can’t say that about many other places in the country for cruising grounds so I think it’s just a remarkable place.
Jess: I would say for me just getting the exposure to sailing in Maine first was or is a seed that has been planted that I will always want to come back here. After going through college and getting some certifications through Sail Maine, I was fortunate enough to be able to sail on a few big boats down in the Caribbean, across the West Coast from Mexico to French Polynesia. I did a whole bunch of cruising with my last job in Baja Mexico in the Sea of Cortez and still, still I dream about sailing in Maine. I dream about coming back to Maine and being on the water here because of the things that Janet mentioned, but it’s just so beautiful and so pristine.
Maine is unique in that even if everybody started sailing here there would still be space to have your own little cove. There’d be a little nook or cranny at an island that you never knew existed until you looked at the chart and said, “Oh wow, that’s just a rock pile, but actually it’s a little island that we can go visit.” Yeah,
I just really appreciate how dynamic sailing in Maine is, not only with the weather and the water, but the tide and also, just the variations in the land formations along the rocky coast.
Dr. Lisa: It also sounds like you are able to re-connect people with something that is bigger than their iPhone, bigger than of the Internet. You’re reconnecting them with the water, the wind, the land masses, the islands. That seems pretty important.
Janet: Absolutely. I think one great thing about the junior programs is that kids get out there completely away from all of technology and they’re in a boat either with another sailor or by themselves or with a couple other sailors. There’s a lot of different variations of how their interaction with other people goes and they have to talk. You’re in a cockpit. You’re in a four foot square space and you have to talk with each other. I think we’ve lost a lot of that. One of the benefits of sailing is that it forces that interaction.
As adults, the same thing, we do social sailing on Friday nights during the summer. We invite people to come down and get on a boat with people they’ve never met before. What a great thing to do on a Friday night, go meet some new people and enjoy Casco Bay on those beautiful summer evenings and learn to sail. If you don’t know how, learn to sail and if you do know how, show someone else. I think it’s really a nice way for people to unplug and as Jess said, “There’s nothing like that feeling of being out there with just no motor, just wind, water, salt air, wildlife. There’s nothing like it.”
One other thing I want to say about sailing in this area. We do offer women’s only programs. I mention that because I think that this is probably a show that’s listened to by a lot of women out there. I, as a young woman sailing, I purchased my first boat by myself as a single woman and that was one of the most proud days of my life. I think that for a lot of women sailing is an outlet and an activity that they can do and that they can learn that they can take a lot of pride in the fact that you don’t need to have a male counterpart to sail or to take a boat out or to own a boat or to go sailing around the world. I encourage any women out there who would like to sail, don’t let the fact that it seems like a big physical sport stop you from coming and learning because it’s not. We do everything we can at Sail Maine to make it comfortable and easy to learn in a women’s only group.
Dr. Lisa: How do people find out about Sail Maine?
Jess: Well, there’s a few different ways. We have a website and you can visit that website. It’s SailMaine.org. Also, we have a Facebook page in which people can check us out there, where we’re updating that page, putting up pictures of what our volunteers are doing, what our youth groups are doing, what the adult sailors are doing.
Janet: We’re happy to put anybody on the mailing list and if you’re on our mailing list, then we send out information about volunteer opportunities, about events, about fun things that we’re doing down at Sail Maine. We always encourage people just to come on by, come knock on the door, walk in the office, ask us what we’re doing down there and we can provide lots of opportunities to get involved.
Jess: Yeah. I’d say a majority of the folks that I’ve introduced to Sail Maine have been just walking along the bike path, walk-path there and they’ve come down and said, “Hey, what’s this all about?” I’ve handed them a brochure and said, “I’m so glad you caught me right now. I’m about to go out on the water.” The other thing is if we aren’t there, it probably means that we’re sailing, but we want you to come back so please try us again.
Dr. Lisa: I encourage people who are listening, women or maybe high school students or younger students or families, anyone who’s interested in sailing to look at your website, go to your Facebook page, learn more about Sail Maine. We’ve been speaking with Janet Acker and Jess McGreehan of Sail Maine. Thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about sailing. I’m inspired.
Jess: Great.
Janet: To thank you for having us.
Jess: You’ll have to sail with us.
Janet: Yeah.