Panther Sailing Club hits Lake Arthur for its maiden voyage

Like any sailor, Vincent Mattiola, president and self-proclaimed admiral of Panther Sailing…

Gideon Bradshaw, Contributing Staff

Like any sailor, Vincent Mattiola, president and self-proclaimed admiral of Panther Sailing Club, enjoys telling stories.

Once, he said, on Barnegat Bay in New Jersey, he managed to reach 22 knots on a sailboat — about 25 miles per hour — before he heard rattling from different moving parts on the boat and saw the boat’s mast begin to bend.

“I thought this whole boat was going to explode,” he said, as he held the boat’s course steady in the middle of the lake.

Mattiola related the experience while maneuvering a 16-foot Hobie catamaran, which he owned until he donated it to the club at the beginning of the academic year. Last Saturday, he and 34 other members of Panther Sailing Club, a new group for Pitt students who enjoy sailing or wish to learn about the sport, traveled 50 miles north of the city to Moraine State Park for their first event.

The group met at 10 a.m. to drive up to the park’s Lake Arthur, where members spent the day picnicking and trying their hand at sailing before leaving in the early evening. Both novices and experienced sailors attended.

Mattiola, a neuroscience major in his junior year and the club’s founder, spent the day piloting the catamaran — currently the club’s only boat — taking two club members out onto the lake for trips that lasted between 30 minutes and an hour.

As soon as the cars full of eager students arrived, Mattiola and several other members pushed the boat trailer from the parking lot where he stores it to the launch area on the lake’s shore.

Mattiola and Alexa Stango, a sophomore psychology and Spanish major, wasted no time taking the boat’s controls, sailing it from the unpaved launch to a section of the shore where other club members had claimed a picnic table.

Even after the short trip along the shore line, Mattiola, who started sailing when he was 11 years old and competed in the North American Hobie 16 North American Youth Championships in 2006, was already reading conditions. With about 15 sailboats cruising back and forth across the lake behind him, he pointed away from the beach.

“It’s glassy right there near the shore, but if you look out, there’s a line of wind,” Mattiola said, referring to a point where disturbances in the water indicated stronger winds.

Meanwhile, Stango, who said that her sailing experience totaled about three years, enjoyed the opportunity the Saturday event afforded her.

“It was amazing. I haven’t sailed in about a year,” she said. “So just being able to again was awesome.”

Several boat owners who frequent Lake Arthur’s marina, including Joe Kirk, 61, launched their boats in order to take club members onto the lake and teach them the basics.

Kirk, who estimated that he has sailed for about 40 years and founded the Point of Pittsburgh Sailing League four years ago, was very impressed with the interest level he saw on Saturday. He said that the club members, many of whom had never sailed before, picked up many of the techniques very quickly.

Many of the students who sailed with Kirk noted that he had several visual teaching aids on his 22-foot Catalina yacht, including a styrofoam boat model he made himself. Kirk said he uses the aids to demonstrate how to maneuver the boat and position sails for wind conditions.

Kirk believed that the interest shown by the Panther Sailing Club would complement his own efforts to get funding to start an instructional program in the city through his sailing league.

Sarah Stephenson, a sophomore who majors in engineering science and minors in bioengineering, made her first-ever sailing trips with Kirk. After just one trip, Stephenson wanted to learn more.

“I would like to be able to go out by myself one day,” she said.

Katie Vasinko, Stephenson’s roommate, sat beside her on the grass near the group’s picnic table after their voyage. Vasinko, also a sophomore, majors in chemical engineering and minors in bioengineering.

Vasinko said that Stephenson persuaded her to come after hearing about the club at this semester’s activity fair. Vasinko was glad that her roommate brought her along. She noted the new vocabulary that sailing included, especially when she took her turn at the tiller, the handle that controls the boat’s rudder.

“It was cool. Joe had me say, ‘ready, about,’ before we took a turn and then, ‘helms to lee,’ during a turn,” she said, referring to the procedure for tacking. Tacking is the sailing term for maneuvering the boat in such a way that wind comes from the boat’s front at an angle and propels it in the direction from which the wind is coming.

Donny Risko, 67, who made the trip to Lake Arthur from his home in Wexford, took groups of three students at a time on his 18-foot Buccaneer, which his daughter named “Sushi.”

As the club members who rode on Risko’s boat took turns steering, he instructed them on the basics of the highly technical sport of sailing. One skill required of sailors is correcting the adjustment of the sheets, a term for the lengths of rope that run between the corners of a sail and the cleats on the hull of a boat. Risko explained that such adjustments optimize the force generated by wind against the boat’s sails, better propelling the boat through the water.

Risko, who completed both his undergraduate work and his master’s degree in engineering at Pitt, said that he volunteered his time after hearing about Panther Sailing Club’s first event from Kirk.

“A few of us who love to sail and who have some experience sailing love to share that with young people,” he said.

Mattiola considered the day a success and was already making plans to raise money to expand the club’s fleet. While his initial request to the Student Government Board for $50,000 to buy four boats was denied, the Board granted him $1,200 during last spring semester. The money was used to reimburse drivers who drove the 100-mile round trip on Saturday, and he estimated that the sum would be enough to make three or four more trips of the same size.

He also collected five dollars from each attendee. The proceeds went to purchase a portable charcoal grill for the club. He said that, ideally, nobody who is interested in sailing should have to pay to learn to sail. However, he has set dues for the club at $30 in order to save money so that the club can buy a second boat.

“We try to keep dues minimal, but at the same time, we’re trying to raise money to buy a boat,” he said.

Even after the club’s first event, Mattiola firmly believed the organization was on its way to establishing a high level of interest at Pitt.

“I am so happy about how today went,” Mattiola said shortly before dusk, as he drove back to Oakland. “I’m absolutely ecstatic.”