LWHS Alumni Set Sail at Golden Gate Park

Participants and mentors in the regatta pose for a photo outside the clubhouse before testing their model sailboats.
photo by Odin Thien-An Marin

Situated in Golden Gate Park, Spreckels Lake is home to the San Francisco Model Yacht Club (SFMYC). The club brings together passionate sailors and builders of both motorized and free-sail model yachts. Lick-Wilmerding High School alumni have found a home at the club, as it provides a place for the graduated Tigers to continue practicing their “Heart, Heart, Hands,” values fostered during their high school days. Lately, alumni have taken on a new role — mentoring youth and amateur bottle boat builders in the SFMYC’s Bruce Ettinger Bottle Yacht Regatta.

The regatta commemorates Dr. Bruce Ettinger, a member of the SFMYC and an avid model yacht builder who valued sharing his passions with youth. Dr. Ettinger founded the regatta when he and a few other club members worked with sixth graders from the Presidio Knolls School.

“They were working with a group of sixth graders, and the teachers wanted to do a soapbox race,” Kate Ettinger, daughter of Dr. Ettinger, said. The original plan was to use cardboard, but Dr. Ettinger suggested building model boats using recycled bottles.

After Ettinger’s father unexpectedly passed away amidst the pandemic, she organized the first official Bruce Ettinger Bottle Yacht Regatta in November 2021 through the SFMYC. The regatta consists of a few building sessions with test sailing days alongside SFMYC members throughout the year. Participants’ boats are all sailboats, made using oversized plastic bottles, with sails controlled by remotes.

Ettinger hoped to continue her father’s legacy and provide opportunities for all people — especially youth — to learn about model yachting. However, the Bruce Ettinger Bottle Yacht Regatta caters to a slightly older age group now than the original sixth graders.

“We’ve discovered that it is better for high school students. There’s just a little bit more skill,” Ettinger said.

A sailor brings his sailboat back to shore to make adjustments after test-sailing it.
photo by Odin Thien-An Marin

People passing through the park are welcome to do more than just watch from the shores — they can attempt to sail no matter their level of experience on test sailing days. Ettinger said their teaching takes a hands-off approach of “no sailing terms, no science and no sales pitches — we give them the controls and let them go.”

Participants in the regatta can follow a manual to build a sailboat, put together by Dick Hunter, a senior builder and mentor at the SFMYC. “We’ve been trying to work on resources to scaffold the experience,” Ettinger said.

The manual provides a foundation for new builders, as the chance of constructing a successful bottle sailboat on the first try is unlikely. However, experimentation and modification are encouraged, and SFMYC mentors help to tackle technical challenges throughout the process. The organization’s open learning environment allows participants to approach building their sailboats in various, individualized ways.

Sailboats keel in a gust of wind.
photo by *Odin Thien-An Marin*

“The keyway to make a bottle boat is prototyping. I try one thing after another using ‘form follows function.’ I see if it works and that’s a prototype. Eventually, when the prototype works, I will have a boat,” Norman Tuck, a kinetic sculptor and a member of the SFMYC, said.

LWHS alumnus Ed Schoenstein ’53 said that through prototyping one can learn about different tools, and dynamics that affect boats. “Balance and forces — there’s a center of effort in the sail and there’s a center level of resistance in the keel, and you have to balance them perfectly to get it sailing,” Schoenstein said.

Ed Schoenstein helps make adjustments to a bottle boat.
photo by Odin Thien-An Marin

Schoenstein credits much of his interest in his hobbies and craft-making to his time in LWHS’s Technical Arts classes and to his father who was a pipe organ builder.

Similar to LWHS frosh today, Schoenstein took an equivalent to the Design and Technology class. “Everyone was required to take sheet metal, woodwork and electronics. Projects involved a lot of drafting and design before you even started in the shops. Stuff like that was not taught at typical high schools,” he said.

“Every day I handle tools. I have a woodshop in my house. It’s just natural that I haven’t put tools down,” Schoenstein said. Schoenstein has been in the SFMYC for over two decades. “Within the club, there’s a wonderful progression. I’ve been sailing for 22 years and have built twelve free-sail boats,” Schoenstein said.

Mimi Wong ’90 built a bottle yacht in the past year’s regatta which her son sailed. She compared working in the shops during her time at LWHS to building model yachts. “Like at the boathouse, you have a little area to work. The shops made me comfortable working with a little soldering or a saw — anything like that. It was just handling the tools and things like that,” Wong said.

While renting model yachts to sail or race can quickly become pricey, building these bottle boats keeps model sailing affordable. And for people who have trouble with nausea at sea, model sailing allows for learning and discovering the same principles of sailing, but on a smaller scale.

Model yacht sailing has provided Wong with a way to learn about sailing principles on her own without the need to board a boat.

“I’m a person who can’t go on a sailboat because I get seasick. I like learning about things like tacking that I just don’t get the chance to do because, again, I’m not a person who’s going to go on a real sailboat ride often,” Wong said.

The regatta is a “self-generative community,” as described by Ettinger. Those who have already built their own boats go on to mentor newer builders. Moving forward, Ettinger hopes to expand the regatta to reassemble friendly races among high schools to deepen its reach to youth.