A Sailor's Story on Lake Hopatcong

I remember looking for our first home and what an exhausting search it had become. My husband, Jeff, finally said: "You want to branch out of Essex County and find something near a lake."

Jeff was looking for his first home to be a place we he could expand on this recreational spirit. The search landed us in Hopatcong with deeded rights to a lakefront property incorporated into a beach association, located on Ingram Cove.

Jeff was excited about getting his first sailboat and sailing on Lake Hopatcong. This was before Craigslist. If you wanted to find good used stuff, you read the Want Ad Press.

There it was, the sailboat of his dreams, called a 1965 Barnegat 17 Day Sailor. This boat was designed and manufactured by Siddons and Sindle Inc. of Island Heights. It is a boat with an overall length of about 16-6 feet, beam of 60 inches, sloop rigging and a sail area of 145 square feet. It was designed to be a lively craft.

Buying the boat secondhand we did not get the other literature that stated: "While we do recommend boating classes for all boaters, we highly recommend boating/sailing classes for sail boaters, since sailing is generally more technical and more challenging than power boating."

This was also pre-boating safety certification days. It was a time when boating was an open-water frontier for the adventurous and floating party animal people. My perception of boating came from what I'd seen in glossy ads—women clad in bathing suits, sunning themselves with a breeze through their hair while their skillful captain whisked them away.

That is a boater's fantasy. Not so for the true sailor.

For the sailor, it's a race with the winds of Lake Hopatcong. One moment you are gliding away at a fast clip and next you boat planes at an 180 degree angle on its side with the water rushing in and hopefully you moved to the side that is not taking in water and have not have been struck in the head by the boom when the winds pushed the main sails aside like a paper fan.

And before I could languish in the rays of the sun, Jeff called out, "Pull in the jib! Pull in the jib!"

Unfortunately sailing does not come with training wheels. It is a baptism by water. Our first sailing ventures took us on collision courses with dockside diving boards. The idea of pulling our sailboat into a restaurant guest slip was far too challenging of a maneuver.

Jeff wanted only the wind to power his boat, but soon that would change. The winds of Lake of Hopatcong can be changeable, but so can be the weather.

Being stuck in the doldrums near the River Styx Bridge, and with thunderstorms approaching, convinced Jeff he needed a two horsepower for these tough situations. All different motorboats have come and gone at our beach association, but Jeff has kept his Barnegat 17 as the only sail boat on our dock. But he has added three kayaks and one sailboard to his collection.

If you want to go retro with an eco-friendly adventure, then sailing is it. Just make sure to get a good instructor.