Tech Reflection: MIT Sailing 1984

Meg Gower ’85 (Course 4): “This photo was taken in the fall of 1984 at the Wood Sailing Pavilion. Marian Evatt ’85 (who is rigging the boat) and I were both seniors and co-captains of the women’s racing team for the ’84-’85 season. (Sailors compete in both fall and spring.)

“I had never sailed before coming to MIT, and learning that skill has influenced my life more than 18.03 or 8.012 or even 4.440. It all started when a guy I was dating, Steve Uhl ’84, took me out in a Tech Dinghy in the spring of my freshman year.

“‘Sit here,’ he said. And then a few minutes later, ‘Now climb over and sit here.’ This happened a few more times, with an occasional ‘Duck your head’ thrown in for good measure.  A while later he clapped me on the back and said, ‘Good job, we won that race!’ To which I replied, ‘We were racing?’

“I ended up crewing for Steve that spring and then took beginner sailing as a PE class in the fall of ’82. Marian, like Steve and most skippers on the sailing team, had grown up sailing. But over the years I learned to skipper too, and in the fall of my junior year, I raced in my first regatta. I recall the wind was very light that day—my favorite wind conditions. I enjoy the subtle nuances of tweaking the shape and position of the sails (center of effort) and finding just the right place to sit and the perfect angle at which to heel the boat (center of resistance) to go fast in light air.

“Since my time at MIT, sailing has continued to inspire me and influence my life choices. For three summers I worked at the MIT Nautical Association Sailing Pavilion to teach others. In 1998, I met a sailor at the University of Michigan Sailing Club and fell in love. In 2001, our wedding reception was BYOB (Bring Your Own Boat).”

Meg Gower ’85 is a landscape architect in Chelsea, Michigan.

Photo by Gary Agranat ’85. A photographer for the 1985 yearbook, Agranat commented: “Meg’s photo at the sailing dock was one of the many photos I took trying to explore and experience MIT in a different way. …I found myself taking many ‘sports’ photographs, but I didn’t see myself as a sports photographer. I was looking at everyone as full human beings on their journeys, and their journeys were as students at MIT, just like me.”

Tech Reflection is a Slice of MIT series that tells the first-person stories behind MIT photos. Read more reminiscences of campus life.

Are you celebrating a milestone reunion like Meg Gower '85 and Gary Agranat ’85 are? Learn more about MIT Tech Reunions taking place May 30 to June 1 on MIT's campus.