KSC celebrates 50 on Dunrobin Shores

DUNROBIN – For 50 years the Kanata Sailing Club (KSC) has been explaining to the community they are actually located in Dunrobin.

West Carleton Online wrote that in jest, but in reality, that is just one of the quirks that makes the cozy sailing club such a popular place for members of all ages to spend their summers when not enjoying the beautiful Ottawa River with sails up.

This sailing season is the KSC’s 50th year, and last Saturday (July 12) the club officially celebrated with a daylong event highlighted by its annual Sail Past which sees the KSC Commodore host the blessing of the boats.

Along with a day of sailing, club members welcomed some of the KSC’s founding members and held a pig roast dinner and held a trivia contest on their deck overlooking the Ottawa River.

“One of the high points of the 50th anniversary get-together was that we had, as you saw at the open house in May, we have a bunch of new social members this year,” KSC Commodore Deb McPhedran told West Carleton Online just feet away from the barbecuing pig. “They are honorary social members because they were involved in the establishment of the club back in 1975, 50 years ago. We also had an honorary member, and he’s the one who is really the driving force behind establishing the club 50 years ago. That was Doug Milne. We have some great photographs of the bunch of us together. And the thing that really ties things together today is that Doug is the one who, when he was not commodore, I think he was harbour master at the time in 1977, said, ‘why doesn’t the Kanata Sailing Cub have a sail past? All sailing clubs need a sail past.’”

McPhedran said Milne was all to happy to show those members who weren’t aware, what a sail past was. The sail pasts West Carleton Online witnessed over the years involves the club members, in their boats, sailing past the commodore, who throws rose petals in to the air as the boats go past and gives each one a non-denominational blessing. This year, McPhedran did the blessing from the end of the club’s new T dock, meaning the sailors had to show off a little more skill than they have in the past, when the commodore would take the rescue boat out to the middle of the Ottawa River and do the blessing from there.

“And so, we started,” McPhedran said. “Hence, the tradition of the sail past began in 1977. We have a lovely picture of Doug from 1984-85, where he’s actually standing on a picnic table in the water and people are sailing past him. Okay, that’s such a long time ago, so based on that, I said, well, it should be fine for me to stand on the end of the dock. It worked very well. The direction of the wind worked very well. The strength of the wind worked very well for the boats to sort of gather down there and come past in front. Three of the (catamarans), with a fourth cat just a little behind, got their act together so beautifully. I never knew our cat sailors were such talented sailors. They zoomed in front of me, like three of them neck and neck. It was spectacular, and I covered them with rose petals as far as the wind would let me, which is not very far, but I gave them that old, the traditional non-denominational blessing. In theory, we’re blessing the fleet. Which means the boats and the sailors for the year. This is a volunteer non-profit club. We treasure every boat; we treasure every sailor.”

After the sail past, club sailors were free to enjoy the river and the perfect wind and weather for a day of sailing. One of the unique things about the KSC is, you don’t have to own a sailboat to be a member. The KSC has its own fleet, and members, after qualifying through instruction, are free to take out the boat of their choice any time they are at the club.

The club continues to improve and grow. The new T dock was installed last year. Thanks to a Rural Ward Community Building Grant from the City of Ottawa, the KSC now has a new inflatable rescue boat which is much easier to operate; nimbler in the water; better suited for rescues; and easily docked an discharged from the new dock.

“We have a new original inflatable boat,” McPhedran said. “Very instructor friendly, very rescue friendly. And a quick deployment on-off ramp so you can drive on. They can drive off. They can get out in the water to rescue people in no time flat, and hopefully only ever use it as an instructor mode or accompanying us on social sales on high wind days. And it could be part of the race committee or maybe next year’s sail past.”

McPhedran credits KSC vice Commodore Tim Stahl with writing the successful grant proposal.

For more information on the KSC, including its numerous Learn to Sail programs, visit the club’s website here.