When Judy Grissette describes a day on the water during one of her and husband Tim’s ritual cruises along the coast, the listener might feel the heart rate slowing, even a sense of calm.
“We love the mornings,” she said. “We’ll wake up and have coffee and take off again. In the late afternoon or supper time, we anchor, we make a meal, sit up there and watch the sun set. It’s just nothing but relaxation.”
Such is life in the slow lane. Their Mainship 34-foot trawler goes about 10 miles an hour on the Intracoastal Waterway. A commonly quoted equation is one hour by car equals one day by boat, meaning that a favorite annual trip from Savannah to Jacksonville, Fla., takes about 3½ days when sailing only in daylight.
“I don’t like being in a speeding boat powering along and getting jostled and bracing myself,” Grissette said. “It’s a different life.”
Geechee Sailing Club in Savannah has been an integral part of the Grissettes’ lives, and vice versa. The couple discovered the club by good fortune, having docked their boat (a different, smaller vessel) one day at a local marina when they saw a group having a good time picnicking after a race.
“They had so much fun,” she recalled. “We asked what was going on. That’s how it started.”
That was 50 years ago. The Geechees, as they call themselves, were founded a couple of years earlier, in 1971. Judy Grissette, now 84, and Tim, 87, have the greatest longevity of the current membership.
“It’s been our whole life,” said Judy Grissette, the club’s social chair and former secretary and treasurer, while Tim has twice been the top-ranking officer as commodore. “We’ve participated in racing, cruising (locally), cruising distances as well.
“We have wonderful, wonderful friends,” she added. “We will continue until we drop.”
Geechee Sailing Club has 58 members, though at one time it grew so popular that it was capped at 100 with a waiting list, Judy Grissette recalled.
Owning or renting a boat is not required, only paying a modest $125 annual membership fee – per family.
“We have a little bit of everything in the club: We have trawlers, sailboats, powerboats,” said Linda Howard, the club’s commodore as well as communications chair. “Some people don’t even have boats but used to have boats and they’ve gotten to the age where they can’t handle it any more but they still want to be a part of the club.”
Linda and her husband, Tom Howard, a past commodore, joined the club in 2004 and count the Grissettes as best of friends. The two couples have gone on cruises together for 20 years, such as the excursion to Jacksonville, which has a scheduled stop in Brunswick.
While the Howards currently have a 40-foot trawler, Tom Howard has extensive experience with sailboats and used to sail to the Bahamas.
The Geechee Sailing Club organizes less-exotic overnight cruises, to surrounding islands and nearby coastal towns such as Hilton Head Island and Beaufort, S.C., and dock or anchor. Members bring along food and beverages, recreation equipment for some beach volleyball, for example, perhaps bicycles, and do some island hopping, maybe go for a hike. In the evenings, they may go boat to boat for dinner and socializing, enjoying board games and good conversation.
Linda Howard recalled a club trip involving several boats led by another sailor.
“He was leading us through this shallow area because he knew the way,” she said. “He fell asleep. We were following him right up into the marsh.”
The misadventure was added to the club’s catalog of stories shared when members get together on the water, at the monthly meetings and especially for the club’s numerous social events scheduled each year.
“Oh gosh, do we ever,” Howard said. “We could talk forever and just laugh. We’ve had some near-misses, lots of near-misses, because we call it boating. We’re not in a hurry to go anywhere. That’s the whole purpose of the club. It’s to enjoy the waterways here, the nature, and it’s just a beautiful sail in our area.”
That’s exactly what Angela Margolit was looking for when she retired in August 2018 from her New Jersey company, which developed, sold and supported computer software for the car rental industry worldwide, she said.
Born and raised near Lake Winnebago in Fond du Lac, Wis., Margolit learned to sail while earning a master’s degree at San Diego State.
Margolit and her husband, Mike, wanted to get away from the snow and be in a city with a nice airport and a lot of activities near the water, including sailing. Florida was too crowded; Savannah was just right.
“I did my homework ahead of time as to what (sailing) clubs are around,” Margolit said. “As soon as I moved here, I reached out to them all and joined them all.”
Margolit, 70, is the race chair for Geechee Sailing Club, which organizes one of Savannah’s biggest competitions, the St. Patrick’s Regatta. The 45th annual regatta was set for March 23-24 on the Wilmington River, Wassaw Sound and, weather permitting, out to the Atlantic Ocean.
About 20 boats participate in the spinnaker, non-spinnaker and Rhodes 19 classes, which race by division one day and the entire field competes the second day in staggered starts – slowest boat first.
Margolit has competed on an all-female crew entry and is a prolific sailor who earned her captain’s license during the pandemic, teaches sailing classes and is crew for Sail Savannah private charters.
She also is education chair for The Landings Sailing Club and the Chatham Sailing Club, the latter of which Margolit said spun off from the Geechees about 15 years ago for those who wanted to do more racing.
These local clubs, as well as the heavily involved Savannah Yacht Club and others in South Carolina, collaborate to organize an annual slate of racing events. GSC is a member of the South Atlantic Yacht Racing Association.
The Geechee Sailing Club has an educational aspect with a variety of guest speakers at the monthly meetings at the Carey Hilliard’s Restaurant on Skidaway Road. Speakers in the last couple of years have represented the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Chatham County Marine Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard Station Tybee, Tybee Island Marine Science Center, Tybee Light Sail & Power Squadron, Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and the Tybee Island Historical Society.
Club members also have given presentations about their adventures on the high seas. More often, they are sharing knowledge with their fellow boaters.
The best thing about Geechee Sailing Club is “being with other people who really enjoy being on the water,” Margolit said. “They’re always bouncing ideas off each other, especially if they have their own boat and they’re having issues. Just trying to find the right resources to fix certain things and have things done to your boat is invaluable.”
For more information about Geechee Sailing Club, go to www.geecheesailingclub.org, visit the club’s Facebook page or email [email protected].
