On a recent Sunday inside the Golden Gate Park clubhouse that’s home to the 128-year-old Model Yacht Club and its collection of handmade wooden vessels, the next generation of mariners and their DIY yachts were in full production mode. Call it Model Yacht Club 2.0 — the bottle yacht.
Everywhere inside the clubhouse, which itself dates to 1940, parents and their kids were transforming water bottles into hulls, pieces of plastic into sails and miscellaneous parts into rigging. Under the tutelage of mentors of various skill levels, the aspiring buildings were crafting boats that would eventually sail in adjacent Spreckels Lake, which was built in 1904 expressly for model boat sailing.
“The joy is seeing families have a chance to come together to learn together to build something together,” said Kate Ettinger who runs the program called the Bottle Yacht Regatta.
The bottle yacht program began five years ago, after a school asked the venerable Model Yacht Club if it could develop an activity for students. When the idea of making personal watercraft from cardboard boxes was ruled out, Ettinger’s father — Bruce Ettinger — a longtime member of the club, hatched an idea.
“My dad looked around the house,” Kate Ettinger recalled, “and said ’oh actually I have this unlimited supply of Fiji water bottles.”
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A bottle yacht, crafted in the Model Yacht Club in Golden Gate Park awaits its chance to sail on Spreckles Lake.
Bruce Ettinger helped craft the initial design for a free sailing yacht with a hull composed of several square water bottles affixed together. But Ettinger, a hobbyist who’d long encouraged kids to get involved in model boating, died suddenly at the project’s infancy.
Ed Schoenstein, another longtime member of the Model Yacht Club picked up the mantle, designing several bottle yachts used in the program today.
“It’s a beautiful idea cause kids get to see their parents building things and they’re doing it together,” said Schoenstein, who stopped by the clubhouse to help advise the builders. “The actual sailing is almost secondary, it’s the experience of doing something together.”
The Model Yacht Club was founded in 1898, and its current membership is mostly around retirement age. Club Commodore Colleen Stobbe said it’s been a struggle getting younger people involved.
“We’re getting older, we free sailors,” Stobbe said. “And for the future I hope to encourage more people to engage in free sailing.”
The bottle yacht program began five years ago during the pandemic with four families. Since its launch, 46 families have crafted 56 boats. The program and the materials for a beginner yacht build are all free. In contrast to the wooden model boats which can cost thousands of dollars and years of work, the bottle yachts cost about $40 to build.
Most of the beginner boats are free sail, meaning they sail at the mercy of the winds. But more advanced builders have added remote controls.
Jason Ford and his young son Tom have been regulars at the club house builds, working their way up to RC sailing.
“As ways to get you and the kid out of the house, you can’t get much better than building,” said Jason Ford. “The thing about building with kids is that it forces them to see that even the adults hit challenges.”
Former builder-turned mentor Xinhang “Simon” Li, said the building brings satisfaction.
“You do really feel a feeling of ’I’ve accomplished something,’” Li said.
During the builds, the normally tranquil clubhouse is filled with the din of building. Hobbyists of all ages gather around tables, tucked in between the grand sailing vessels, comparing notes and getting tips from the more seasoned builders. Ettinger thrives on the energy.
“We are teaching small building, we are teaching design, we’re teaching creative problem design,” Ettinger said.
The program has brought a new infusion of youth and energy to the old club. Schoenstein ducked in and out of the tables, offering tips and reviewing rigging, marveling at how the program has caught on since its inception.
“We were a club of a bunch of old men,” he said glancing around the room. “And this is just so refreshing.”
Tom Ford, the elementary school-aged builder labored over his bottle boat he named Victoria. Tom was lured into the program after visits with his father to Spreckles Lake to watch the model boats careening across the water. Aside from the chaotic building sessions, Ford appreciated the tranquillity of actually putting his boat in the water.
“I like to take Victoria and put her in the water, ” Ford said. “It’s just like calm — the boat doesn’t make any sounds.”
Ettinger stood behind a row of the club’s traditional model yachts, taking in the energetic bottle boat crafting that has ushered a new generation into the old club. The program is a tribute to her father Bruce, who was passionate about getting young people get involved in the model boats.
The program culminates in a summer race named the Bruce Ettinger Bottle Yacht Regatta which gets underway at Spreckles Lake on June 4th.
“I was very close to my parents and they both passed,” Ettinger said. “So I love this opportunity to create a chance for families to do a project together that they will remember forever.”