Washington College Magazine
Chase Dejter '05 was a founding member of the wakeboard club.
Skipper Conner Blouin and senior crew Alexandria Starks look to keep the WC sailors ahead of the competition in 2007-08. The sailing team will open this season ranked 14th in the country—its highest preseason ranking in four years. Six seniors, five of them four-year sailors, return for WC, the most in the program's varsity history. Washington won four regattas last year and finished the spring 2007 season with a seventh-place performance at the America Trophy, the MAISA Spring Co-Ed Championships.
photo: Geoff Becker
Water Sports Fans Find The Chester
by Michael McGrath '07
Visitors to Chestertown can be forgiven for doing a double-take as they cross the bridge over the Chester River and see college students slicing and speeding through the water behind the school's very own Malibu powerboat. The wakeboard and water-ski club is a close-knit group of fanatics who live on the edge of churning, high-speed wakes, and execute intricate sequences of tricks, often times high in the air, while the water slides underneath them.
The view of Chestertown from a boat is one of stately elegance, with beautiful waterfront homes dotted between the marinas and tall grasses. With this as their backdrop, the wakeboard and water-ski club members push the limits of gravity. With the Chester approaching 70 degrees and the lull of winter slowly giving way to the tug of summer, these students can be found mid-back roll, or at the peak of a daring 360-degree turn. Dan Jacobs '07 is one of the club's officers, and has been wakeboarding since he was fourteen, getting his start on the Magothy River near Annapolis. As the months fly by and graduation and responsibility loom precariously in the distance, Dan finds time on the river to be just what the doctor ordered: "Being on the river, in the sun, enjoying the outdoors, pushing the limit," these are the things that draw students out of their dorm rooms and library cubicles and onto the water.
Wakeboarding, for those who have not tried it, can appear difficult or dangerous. It is not uncommon for first-timers to find themselves with a mouthful of water and a disappearing bathing suit. But the taste and embarrassment fade as soon as one's stride is found, usually, club officer Scott Vane '07 says, "By the third or fourth try." The club primarily skis the area between Rolph's Wharf and the Chester River Yacht & Country Club, but if heavy winds pick up, they find safety in the more protected and placid spots upriver, north of the bridge.
Being on the river, in the sun, enjoying the outdoors, are the things that draw students out of their dorm rooms and onto the water.
With dusk settling over the Chestertown skyline I watched the club's members from the safety of the boat as they spun and tumbled over the rippling water. They carved sharply and took the wakes at high speeds, their legs crouched and their brows furrowed. There is contact with the wave and then lift-off, and then suddenly they seem frozen in a moment, high in the air, silhouetted against the sun, before they come back down and exchange enthusiastic hand gestures. It looks freeing and unusual, but these students are just like so many of us here at Washington, speeding towards the future with style.
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