After 5: From Bow to Stern: Sailing in the Ozarks

Part III: Canoes, kayaks and other small watercraft

Freedom to ride the waves and go where you please is an ancient tradition, predating the party barges and bass boats on southwest Missouri’s lakes. Before the age of the outboard, there was an age of sail, and for area freshwater mariners today, the sailing is good.

Robert Stockdale took up the hobby when his family first moved to the area.

“When we moved to Springfield, my parents lived in Eureka Springs, Ark., and we went down there,” Stockdale recalls. “The first thing to do was buy a sailboat. I come from a Norwegian background (and) my great-grandfather was a sea captain, so it was in my blood.”

Stockdale, a Springfield architect, enjoys sailing his 33-foot Hobie competitively, and the centerpiece of the sailing season for him is the Governor’s Cup Regatta. Started in 1974, the race on Stockton Lake is the key regional sailing competition.

“It’s a great weeklong event with some very good sailors,” Stockdale says. “When you talk about the Midwest, except for areas like Chicago, it is probably the premier sailing event in this part of the country.”

Stockdale says that if he didn’t own property on Table Rock, Stockton is where he would choose to keep his boat, named Bizzniss.

Cabinets by Lane co-owner Bunny Lane has made the move to Stockton from Table Rock.

“The area of water a person could sail in is much better than Table Rock,” says Lane, commodore of the Lake Stockton Yacht Club. “With the high cliffs down on Table Rock, the wind would come over the hills and end up being real squirrelly and difficult to sail. You had to learn to read the water.”

The inviting waters of Stockton have spawned an active and vibrant sailing community. Lane says the three marinas on Stockton have more than 300 sailboats between them. Even though she and other sailors have tried out Bull Shoals, Pomme De Terre and Truman Lakes, she stands by her praise of Stockton, recalling it was once voted one of the 10-best sailing lakes in the United States.

It only took a month for Lane to sign up with the Stockton Yacht Club after moving there in 1995. The club holds social events five or six times a year and holds an educational seminar in April. It also holds competitions and becomes a magnet for competitive sailors. Lane says Stockton’s many Army Corps facilities come in handy when the club hosts an event.

Former club commodore Paul Nahon says the events are a lot of fun. Nahon learned to sail on the West Coast near San Diego. He was even a yacht broker for a while before moving to southwest Missouri. Nahon says the club makes getting started into competition very easy.

“A lot of boats will have three to seven crew members on them,” Nahon says. “Even though people don’t race their own boat, they might race on someone else’s boat.”

Both Lane and Stockdale are self-taught. Stockdale says there is an old adage that it “takes a day to learn how to sail and a lifetime to learn to sail well.”

Lane says she and her husband bought their 25-foot sailboat without knowing how to sail.

“We just got some real quick basics from the man who sold it to us,” Lane says. “We just got out there and tried things ourselves. We made lots of boo-boos and became more accomplished year to year and week to week.”

Since that first boat, the Lanes have owned four others, getting a little larger each time.

Nahon says it is never to soon to teach your kids and jokes his were on the boat before their first birthday.

“I’d say when they are three or four years old, getting them on the water is a great idea,” Nahon says.