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Sailing began here at MIT in 1936.
MIT has the oldest college boathouse in the US.
Called sailing began here at MIT.
This is the birth place and the first 10 national championships
were hosted here, as the only sailing
facility in the US for collegiate racing.
One of the coolest things about the MIT sailing pavilion
is that we're able to provide sailing opportunities
for a huge range of sailors.
Everybody from the elite racer, who
wants to come down on Tuesday nights and mix it up--
Red versus green.
--to recreational sailors, some of whom
never sailed before they came to MIT
and they learned to sail through our programs.
We also have wind surfing, we are the varsity sailing team.
We teach PE classes to MIT students for MIT credit.
So it's a pretty neat range that we're
able to provide for so many people.
I started sailing when I was in junior high in really, really
small boats.
And so I continued on into high school
and when I decided to go to college, I figured well,
I wanted to continue sailing there too,
because that was my life.
I sailed almost every day, over weekends and I went to school
and that's really all I did.
So when I came to MIT, I continued that sailing
in school and I was really happy that we
had such a great program here.
The MIT Nautical Association is the largest student group
on campus that encompasses all of the programs that we have.
And it's free and open to all MIT students, which
means that pretty much anyone on campus
has the opportunity to learn how to sail.
One of the real gems of our program
is the volunteer involvement.
We have volunteers that teach, learn
to sail lessons on Wednesday nights and Sundays,
throughout the summer, and those sailing lessons
are open and free to anybody with an MIT ID.
So any member of the MIT community
can come down here, take the lessons, if they like doing it,
which a lot of people do, they can get a sailing card.
And with a sailing card, that allows
you to sail here noon to sunset, seven days a week,
from April 1st to November 15.
Sailing has a particularly unique fit here at MIT.
I think the activity itself ties together
a lot of different skills and philosophies
and, to a scientific mind, I think
the idea of using the forces, the physics,
of the wind and the water, and the equipment
to propel yourself around the river and the fact
that sailing is also a very social sport.
So here at MIT where people are working really hard
and in a very challenging environment,
coming down to the sailing pavilion
can really be that recharge, even
if it's just for 45 minutes.
I think the best part is when you've been out under water
for about an hour and you're in drills,
you've been in for a while, and then you
realize you haven't thought about school
in a very long time.
So you start thinking about, OK, what do I have to do tonight?
What [INAUDIBLE] do I have to get done?
But you have that time period where
you realize that nothing, anything remotely school,
have you thought about it, because you
deserve to do something fun.
And what's the best way to have fun, is to go sailing.
And it's great too, because with the recreational sailing,
anyone can do that.
You have a sailing cad, you come down,
you forget about all the hard stuff
that you had to deal with that day,
and you could just relax, go out on the water
and have fun with friends.