SPOTLIGHT MODEL YACHTS MODEL YACHTS

WORDS BY PATRICIA VALICENTI / SARDINE FEATURES PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANCIS APESTEGUY / SARDINE FEATURES

Just yards away, yet a world removed from the din of the traffic on one of the world’ s busiest avenues, a little brick structure filled with model yachts looks out onto a pond of calm that provides thrills for sailing enthusiasts.

The boathouse appears to be sunken below Fifth Avenue, immersed in the century-old trees of New York City’s Central Park. Few would guess that the small building and accompanying pond beyond have nurtured some fine model yacht racers and generations of model boat enthusiasts, thanks to the Central Park Model Yacht Club, which was founded in 1916, making it one of the oldest in the United States.

Some come to race in the weekly regattas on Saturday mornings, others for recreational sailing the rest of the week. The Central Park Model Yacht Club currently has about 50 members, while several dozen other model sailors keep their boats in the house. All hold boat permit s, bought for an annual $20 from the City of New York Parks Depa rtment, which is in charge of the boathouse and the pond, formally named Conservatory Water.

Conservatory Water has been part of the lands cape of the city since Central Park was carved out of the swampy lands of Manhattan in the mid-19th century. The current boathouse was inaugurat ed in 1954, funded by Alice and Edward Kerbs, a New York couple who, from their Fifth Avenue apartment across the street, liked to look out and see the sailboats on the pond. Around the pond, the popular sculptures of Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Anderson at tract swarms of enthusiastic children, who always spare some time to stare at the impressive model yachts.

On an average day, one can spy world-class racing yachts, barges, cat schooners or replicas of America’s Cup winner s dancing in the waters—proffering a wilder shore of New York City.

But the Saturday morning model yacht regattas are where the real action is. Some races are for mixed classes, others are reserved for the 36-inch class or the International One Meter boats, within which are five different classes. And on a Saturday morning, a keen ballet of tactics, rules and reflexes unfolds on the waters of the pond. Model yacht racing follows the same rules and regulations as full-size sailing almost to the letter.

The Central Park Model Yacht Club has bred some fine model yachtsmen. One member won the Internationals several years ago, and the current national model yacht champion, Niel Goodrich, can regularly be found racing in the park on Saturday mornings, when the water is reserved exclusively for the boats participating in the regattas.

The skippers and their fast boats always draw a crowd of the curious to watch them, radio control in tow, dashing up and down beside the basin. There is always excitement in the air on the edge of the pond as skippers sharpen their tactics, trim their sails and try to get over the starting line first to beat each other to the first marker. The boats’ sails and rudders are guided by the skippers through radio control, but the main challenge is in finding the elusive wind. Central Park is regarded as one of the most difficult places to sail model yachts.

“If you can sail here, you can sail anywhere,” says former commodore and yacht club trustee Frank Soto, who no longer races, but does recreational sailing on Sundays. “It is very, very tricky sailing because of these winds. They sneak in.”

“I think of this as chess on the water, with its tactics,” says Goodrich, who, at the age of 43, has been coming to the boathouse for over 30 years.

“You have to wait for the wind. That is one of the things I learned growing up with these people—you can’t make the wind do anything, you have to learn to be patient. Being able to read wind and water is an art lost to most people. In addition to all of the things you need to be a sailor, racing also requires lightning-fast reflexes. And while people that are accustomed to sailing big boats may take 15 seconds to tack the boat and get everyone shifted to the other side, our boats do it instantaneously,” continues Goodrich, who designs and builds his own model boats.

But sailing at Conservatory Water isn’t always such a fast-action spectacle, and lazing away any sunny autumn day beside the sail-filled water can provide one of the most relaxing moments the city has to offer. Whether a regatta enthusiast, or just a visitor looking for a unique slice of New York life, everybody is sure to fall in love with this park treasure.

Kerbs Boathouse is located on the east side of Central Park between 72nd and 75th Streets. Call Central Park Sailboats at 917-796-1382 for information on model boat s ales and rentals.