The original Tufts sailing boathouse was an antique in every sense of the word. Built in 1948 and featuring three rooms for storing boats, the old boathouse wasn't given a bathroom until 1960 or proper plumbing until the 1990s. This week, construction workers are breaking ground on the new Larry Bacow Boathouse.
The first thing to go is the bathroom.
From there, two levels will be added to the preexisting boathouse, which will triple the area athletes, coaches and spectators have at their disposal. The second floor will have a locker room and additional repair space. The top floor will have a main room for the team to gather together after practice, an office, a kitchen, a conference room and a library, not to mention an outdoor deck area that will stretch the length of the boathouse.
For coach Ken Legler, who came to Tufts to coach over 30 years ago, the boathouse has been a long time in the making.
"It took kind of forever," he said. "I came here in the fall of 1980 and the undergrads were already working on fundraising to make this happen."
A long time coming
Thursday's practice started out normally for junior tri-captain Will Haegar. That is, it was normal until Legler motored up in the middle of practice from a meeting and blasted on his whistle to bring the boats together. All Legler had to do was throw his arms in the air, a piece of paper clutched in his fist, for the team to know that the permits for the boathouse had finally come through.
"We all started clapping and couldn't help but smile," Haeger said. "It was a really cool moment for us."
But the project's approval was the result of decades of hard work and frustration.
Although fundraising started in the '80s, keeping pace with inflation proved to be a hard task for the fundraisers. They chose to build a new-and-improved plumbing system first, which, according to Legler, would have cost twice as much if it were built today.
More ambitious plans for the boathouse have been in the works ever since former President Larry Bacow put his support behind its construction.
Bacow, a sailor himself when he was a student at MIT, has always placed a strong emphasis on athletics. Upon leaving the university in August 2011, Bacow channeled many of the unmarked gifts he had received into the boathouse fund.
According to Legler, once the staff found out that Bacow was behind the project they knew it would be finished - it was just a question of when. This proved to be an important turning point: Tufts sailing has had the money to build the boathouse for the past year, but building permit complications have gotten in the way.
"[It was a] full year of delays on the permits," Legler said. "Every time we solved one issue it would lead to another."
All of that changed last Thursday, when Legler was in Boston at a sailing-related hearing. He received word that the building permits had finally come through. From Boston, Legler used every means of transportation at his disposal, finally motoring up to the boats on the Mystic Lake to stop practice and announce the good news.
"I waved my hands and everyone knew," he said. "This time it's for real. The boating construction company shows up this week to begin work."
From bunker to glass castle
For the athletes, the new boathouse will make their Tufts sailing experience a lot more comfortable. According to senior tri-captain Natalie Salk, one of the most exciting additions of the new boathouse will be the locker room, where athletes can store wet and bulky gear instead of stashing it at home.
And for freshman Claire Brodie, who has raced for five years but never sailed anywhere with locker rooms, the new boathouse will provide a welcome change. For freshmen like Brodie, who will be able to use the new boathouse for the next three years, the timing of the permit is fortuitous.
"The one we had was fine, but this [new] one has a lot more space," she said. "It will be nice to have a bathroom and somewhere to change."
Although Legler can't be sure when construction will be completed, particularly due to potential weather complications, there is still a hope that the boathouse will be completed in time for the seniors to make use of it during the spring.
The boathouse will be particularly useful during competitions because it will provide more viewing places for opposing teams and parents. Currently, the only place for coaches and teams to watch races is on what Salk describes as a "concrete bunker" and what Haegar calls a "bomb shelter."
With the new construction, Haegar is looking forward to welcoming visiting teams to the improved venue.
"All the powerhouse teams around us have really nice facilities," he said. "We finally got to the level of the other schools in terms of equipment."
In addition to having a better viewing area for the regattas Tufts hosts, the team will also make use of the extra space on a daily basis. As the colder months roll around, the team is looking forward to a central meeting place away from the elements.
For Legler, the open space upstairs will be the most useful because it will allow for extra coaching time by giving the whole team a place to gather at the end of every practice.
"Frankly, the benefits are pretty big," Legler said. "In the old boathouse, we couldn't do any sort of debrief. People would come in and just leave. With the new boathouse, the team will come in, put boats way on the first floor, change in the second and be ready for video on the third floor for a 15-minute debrief each day.
Besides the benefits to the team, with the dedication of the boathouse to Bacow comes another addition - the New England Freshman Championship trophy will be proudly displayed in the boathouse, complete with all of the names of the athletes who have won it since the '40s. So Bacow's name will be not only on the boathouse, but also on the trophy inside from his time as a sailor at MIT.
