Locals work to bring sailing to Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — If things go as planned, we could be seeing sails on Moses Lake.

“The dream is to … bring water education to the children who don’t have the opportunity (and) make that available to them,” said Teresa Fields, a Trails Planning Team member who’s also spearheading the effort to bring the YMCA to Moses Lake. The YMCA offers sailing camps and lessons in other parts of the country, according to its website, and it was suggested at a TPT meeting that the organization might be interested in doing the same in Moses Lake.

Sailing enthusiast Rick Biery of Moses Lake said he’d be willing to teach classes, whether through the YMCA or independently.

“I used to teach sailing lessons in Newport, California,” he said. “All the different boating stuff: rowing, canoeing, sailing, whatever.”

Fields took that and ran with it, Biery said. She contacted sailing organizations in Chelan and the Tri-Cities.

“They (said), ‘Whatever you guys do, let us know and we’ll help you out,’” Fields said. “So we’ve got some collaboration on that.”

In order to have a sailing class, you need boats, and Fields said she’s pursuing leads to find some.

“I’ve got emails out to different colleges, because they retire their boats and sell them really cheap,” she said. “We’re looking for a fleet of six to eight boats 14 feet or higher.”

Moses Lake isn’t exactly southern California, but Biery said it’s still a good place for a sailboat. The dynamics are similar to sailing around a harbor, he said.

“I sail down to the Sand Dunes and back,” he said. “(With harbor sailing), the wind shifts a little bit as you go between the houses and the harbors and stuff. There’s not going to be a big swell like the ocean; in harbor, the only swell is other boats going by.”

The ideal fleet would be small dinghies for teaching, plus a motorboat, Biery said.

“Because when they get lost out on the lake or if the wind dies, you’ve got to pick them up and drag them back in,” he said.

The other thing a sailing program would need is storage for the boats, Biery said, and he and Fields are looking into options for that as well.

Sailing was an important part of his growing-up years, Biery said.

“When I was a kid I was a Sea Scout,” he said. “We used to sail the Channel Islands. We’d go to Catalina Island or we would zip down to Santa Cruz Island and go up the coast and cut across and go into the caves and fish and swim in the cold water and look for sharks. That was a neat experience for me.”