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SEAS History
In 1975, Andy Orgonik, a member of the High Life Ski Club, together with other members of the Ski Club, decided to teach a sailing class as a summer activity.
The ski club still exists (5/07) and meets at the Exchange Restaurant in Rockaway, NJ.
Andy was a certified Red Cross Basic Sailing Instructor and Instructor Trainer and he spent the winter working with interested members of the ski club to enable them to begin the sailing program.
In the spring, members of the club brought their own boats to a nearby lake to teach the class. They also had the use of a boat belonging to the Morristown Red Cross.
The class was successful and some of the members decided to continue the practice by forming an organization of volunteers to teach safe sailing to the public. Thus, The Society for the Education of American Sailors (SEAS) was born.
Initially, member's boats and student's boats were used but it was soon discovered that we could not rely on this source of boats and needed to purchase our own.
The fledgling sailing club used dues money and borrowed money (from the membership) to build a fleet of sailing craft, trucks, trailers and other items to enable them to move from lake to lake in the region so as to offer the service to the public, primarily in Morris County, NJ.
Basic sailing classroom sessions were held in various locations and Round Valley Reservoir, Spruce Run Reservoir, Lake Hopatcong, Lake Musconetcong, Budd Lake, Mountain Lake and other local lakes were used for the water sessions.
SEAS began racing after acquiring a fleet of 8 Phantom lateen rigged boats. We towed those boats from place to place on a trailer called "The Christmas Tree." Race locations included Atlantic Highlands, NJ, Skaneateles, NY (one of the finger lakes), Candlewood Lake, CT, Lake Hopatcong, NJ, Cooper River in Collingswood, NJ, East End Mini Yacht Club, St. Georges, Bermuda, and Annapolis, MD (in a 24 hr. relay race against the Navy, and a collection of drinking establishment teams).
Meetings were held at a restaurant in Denville, NJ and, eventually, in the Parsippany, NJ Library.
The club grew. Circa 1978 - 1979 SEAS began sponsoring club charter cruises, in Long Island Sound and in Chesapeake Bay. In 1979 some of the members flew to Tortola, B.V.I. where they chartered 3 44' CSY cutters to explore the British and U.S. Virgin Islands. The large boat charter tradition continues to this day, with charters in the Virgins, San Juan Islands, Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California), Tahiti, New Zealand, the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Florida Keys, the Caribbean Windward and Leeward Islands and other exotic places.
The club continued to grow. It soon became clear that we needed to re-think our basic club structure. We decided to form several local chapters and a national organization to coordinate inter-chapter operations. The original SEAS became the Morris Chapter, with the Bergen Chapter forming soon thereafter. The Bergen Chapter arranged to procure space in the Alpine Boat Basin to store and sail their boats. Unfortunately, the Hudson River at the Alpine Boat Basin location experiences a 4 1/2 knot current, which makes the teaching of basic sailing a real challenge.
The Bergen and Morris chapters joined forces to teach a class for IBM employees. We had a large (over 100) class and we held the water session on the Hudson River, at Georges Island Park, upriver of Croton Point, where the current was less strong. We assembled a large fleet of boats, of various descriptions and rigs and (somehow) made it all work. Shortly thereafter, the Westchester Chapter was formed.
The Westchester Chapter taught their classroom sessions in the White Plains ARC Chapter and held their water sessions in various lakes, and ponds in Westchester County, and on Long Island Sound. The Chapter was able to acquire space in Tarrytown, NY in an unused Men's dressing room in a County Park bathhouse on the Hudson River, their current location.
Several years later, the Monmouth, NJ chapter was formed.
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