Spreckels Lake is a lake in the sense that the miniature craft that ply its waters are boats.

In other words, it’s a model of a lake: less than 1,000 feet long by 500 feet wide, 5 feet deep in the middle with vertical edges to prevent boats from running aground.

The lake was built in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in 1903, named for Adolph B. Spreckels, scion of the Spreckels Sugar Company. As San Francisco Park Commissioner, Spreckels was committed to the development of Golden Gate Park.

Established in 1898, the San Francisco Model Yacht Club serves as primary custodian to the lake. Its members sail regularly throughout the week and the club often stages special events such as races, parades, tug boat and barge pulls and displays of building craftsmanship.

Adjacent to the lake, the group’s clubhouse was built as a WPA project in 1937. It serves as a boat storage facility and meeting site.

According to the San Francisco Yacht Club website:

When the club house is open and attended by a member, all are welcome to come in and have a look at our beautiful collection of boats, most of which are in sailing condition and operational. And of course, the lake is open to everyone, regardless of whether one is a member. The lake is available to powerboats from 10:00am until 1:00pm, and to sail boats from 1:00pm on. The only proviso is that normal courtesy prevails with regard to radio frequencies and sailing rules.

“In the early days,” notes the website, “carefully crafted sailboats were released from the shore and allowed to sail freely while their owners watched closely and kept them away from the lake edge with long poles.”

Even in this time of cheap and ubiquitous radio control, some free-sailer boatsmen take pride in their ability to achieve hands-off navigation.

I visited Spreckels Lake recently with Richard, a Baylands flyer who also loves model boats.

Richard’s vessels of choice are powered by electricity and steered by radio control. He brought a tugboat, a couple of nicely-finished runabouts, an amphibious bus and a funny little boat sporting a cowcatcher on its bow. He called it a cowcatcher, but it looked more like a scoop. This boat was his rescue vessel — it could push hapless boats to shore using its scoop as a bumper.

“Bring warm clothing,” Richard warned me. “It will be overcast.”

When we arrived the lake was bathed in sunshine. It was a lovely afternoon.

I recall visiting Spreckels Lake as a kid, admiring the old guys rigging their model sailboats, aiming them toward the wind and launching them on an aggressive tack.

There weren’t many boats on the lake. In fact, I saw just one boat as Richard was setting up. But I was captivated by a bunch of turtles basking on the back of a concrete turtle. Turtles found in the park include yellow-bellied sliders, red-eared sliders and soft shell turtles.

The turtles share Golden Gate Park lakes with lots of birds and fish, primarily Oriental carp mixing with oddball introductions including tilapia and an alligator gar. During a 2004 renovation of Spreckels Lake, a fisheries biologist removed 1.3 tons of fish.

As Richard launched his boats, I started shooting pictures.

To tell the truth, I think boats are far less interesting than airplanes. They zip back and forth but you can’t do much else: they lack a vertical dimension. No inverted floating, no barrel rolls or loops. No crashes. You can kill the throttle and take a nap if you want: the boat will float patiently on the waiter, waiting for you to wake up.

Where’s the fun in that?

On the other hand, many guys who love boats get off on the details. Johnny, a Spreckels Lake veteran, owns lots of beautiful scale boats, including a model ferry with 100 passengers. He painted each person individually, traveling on a real ferry and snapping photos for ideas.

Johnny told me he once hired a diver to recover a boat that sank in the middle of Spreckels Lake. The guy waded out to the center of the lake, groped around with his feet, took a deep breath and bent over to retrieve the boat. No diving necessary.

So boats do sink. That’s a vertical dimension. At least our airplanes don’t disappear underground when they crash.

Johnny also said that some enthusiasts explore the lake with radio-controlled submarines. I don’t know how they keep track of their submerged boats in that murky water, but their boats add another vertical element to water navigation.

Talking to Johnny, I soon realized that Spreckels Lake has a boating community very similar to the flying community at Baylands.

On yet another hand, I admire the sailboat pilots. They’re analogous to glider pilots, using the only wind to propel their craft. The free-sailers are, in fact, quite inspiring.

We saw only a couple of sailboats on this particular Sunday, but they tacked into the wind and reached and ran just like bigger boats.

Meanwhile, Richard launched all his motorboats, enjoying the sun and the light breeze. He also rescued another boat with his cowcatcher craft.

At one point he handed me the transmitter for the tugboat and I slowly cruised back and forth, slightly annoyed by how easy it was. Rudder and throttle: that’s it. No reverse on this one, though some boats can go backward. Radio control gear for boats has fewer channels than what flyers expect.

But for a photographer, boats have one big advantage over airplanes: water provides drama.

When I take pictures of planes in the air, I prefer to shoot them against a background object — a tree, a hill, a horizon. If I don’t, they look like I Photoshopped them onto a blue or grey background.

But when the camera freezes water, the boat looks powerful, interesting, heroic.

So, as I looked at the pictures afterwards, they erased my annoyance at the simplicity of boating. Instead, I saw the drama of boats battling the water, savoring the memory of the day perhaps more than my experience of the day.

Tags: Boats, Gallery, Life, People.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Elsewhere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.