Sailing Team Finds a Home at Mill Creek County Park

Tucked along Chelsea Avenue, which winds through Pine Beach into Berkeley Township and Ocean Gate along the Mill Creek, just off western shore of the Toms River, is a little park. Seventeen acres of oaks and cedars and white pine trees, with a pavilion, picnic tables and playgrounds, as well as walking trails.

“It’s a pretty site,” Freeholder John Bartlett says. “I’ve had my eye on it for a while.”

Mill Creek County Park was acquired by Ocean County more than a decade ago, but it hasn't been used much, Bartlett said.

That’s why he believes it’s a perfect spot to construct a sailing center for the Ocean County College sailing team.

The term “center” is somewhat misleading, because it implies a much larger project, Bartlett said.

The center caused a stir among residents when the proposal was first announced.

“This will have minimal impact,” Bartlett said.

The plans - which include a storage building, a boardwalk and a floating dock - are designed for training and practice only.

“This is a sailing community,” he said. “I do believe this will enhance the park.”

For Roy Wilkins, coordinator of the Ocean County College sailing team, it’s a welcome development.

“It would give us a home,” Wilkins said. “We’ve sort’ve been vagabonds for years, so to have a place of our own would be nice.”

Wilkins built the OCC sailing program from scratch. He came to the college in 2002, after retiring from a 37-year career as an educator and coach at Stockton College.

“When I started (at OCC), I had six kids,” Wilkins said.

One local high school had a sailing program, with just two students participating. Now, nearly a decade later, there are 50 kids on the water, including 18 from three local high schools.  Central Regional, Monsignor Donovan and Toms River South each send six students to train with the OCC sailors.

Ocean County has a rich sailing heritage. The Barnegat Bay Yacht Racing Association has been in existence since the early 1900s, when John V.A. Cattus (memorialized in the naming of Cattus Island County Park) served as its commodore. So it seemed natural to start a sailing program at OCC, Wilkins said.

“All these kids have these terrific sailing waters around them, and some of them never realized it," he said.

Wilkins’ enthusiasm for the program has helped it gain national recognition: In April 2010 the Vikings sailed against and defeated the likes of Princeton, Villanova and Drexel in the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA) Championships, a national regatta.

That’s no small accomplishment for a junior college whose team relies on donations – of boats, equipment and storage space – and fund-raising to travel to its competitions.

“The local sailing community has been very supportive,” said Wilkins.

The OCC club currently sails out of the Toms River Yacht Club, which will be the site used to host regattas because it can accommodate the traffic.

Building a program to national stature is nothing new for Wilkins. When he joined Stockton College in 1989 they were just starting a women’s soccer program.

“We had no team, no kids, no field, no lockers … nothing,” he said. That first team finished 6-6-1. In 1995, the Stockton women hosted the NCAA Division III Final Four, losing to Methodist 2-0 in the national semifinal game.

Now, Wilkins enjoys building the sailing program. He's proud of what it offers students from Ocean County.

“Here a kid gets to come to OCC and get a good two-year degree and sail against the best schools,” he said.

For many of them,  competing on the sailing team takes them out of New Jersey, some for the first time in their lives, on trips as far as Rochester, NY, and Charleston, SC.

Because the sailing program receives no funding from the college, the commitment by the college to spend $850,000 to build the sailing center is a huge step forward.

To be able to have their own space – the proposal includes a 1,400-square-foot sailing boat house, a 1,456-square-foot boat storage building, and a floating dock that Wilkins said would allow them to roll the boats right into the water for practice, then roll them back into the storage facility afterward – is a great feeling.

It’s been a long process, Wilkins said.

He hopes that now that the needed Green Acres hearings are completed - they were required because of the proposal to change the use of the park - construction will move forward soon.

Bartlett said he and OCC President Jon Larson have gone over the designs for the center.  Construction should start by the fall.

“Ocean County College’s new logo is three sailboats, because sailing has long been a big part of this county,” Bartlett said.

“It’s finally going to happen,” Wilkins said. “It will be great to have a home.”