Harvard Raises $1 Million Toward New Sailing Center as Aging Boathouse Deteriorates

Harvard is quietly raising money for a new sailing center on the Charles River — and has already brought in $1,000,025 for the project, according to an internal Alumni Affairs and Development presentation obtained by The Crimson.

In the internal slide deck, the sailing center was listed as an athletics “sub-priority” — but the materials did not include a fundraising target.

Harvard Athletics spokesperson Imry Halevi confirmed that Harvard is interested in the possibility of building a new sailing center.

“We are exploring the feasibility of developing a permanent sailing center structure,” Halevi wrote in a statement. “This kind of evaluation is part of a normal planning process as Athletics considers short and long-term facility needs.”

For now, Harvard’s sailing team continues to operate out of a floating boathouse installed in 1971.

The Harvard Sailing Center sits on a barge in the Charles River and houses boat storage, restrooms, and a small repair shop. But several sailors said the aging structure shows decades of deterioration.

“It is definitely very dilapidated and in need of repair and, honestly, replacement,” sailor Xavier C. Ayala-Vermont ’27 said.

Replacing the structure would also pose logistical challenges. The barge was installed before modern locks were built downstream on the Charles River, meaning the structure is now too large to pass through them.

“The barge was placed in before the locks that are now at the front of the river towards the harbor, and so the barge is actually bigger than the locks now,” Ayala-Vermont said. “So that provides quite the challenge in actually getting the old boathouse out, and that obviously adds quite a bit of expense in our projected plans to try to get the boathouse replaced.”

Athletes also said the current facility lacks basic amenities expected for a Division I program, including adequate locker rooms.

“Right now, there’s not what you would consider or what the normal person would probably consider adequate changing rooms and everything like that, to what you would need for a Division I sports team,” former captain Justin P. Callahan ’26 said.

Callahan, who earned the highest honor for collegiate sailing in the country in 2025, said improved facilities could strengthen the team’s training environment.

“TVs to watch our drone video, or proper locker rooms to change and to have these individual rooms would be a very big help to the team in terms of being able to create an atmosphere that fosters a proper learning environment and a proper environment suitable to what you would think a national championship winning team is,” Callahan said.

A Harvard spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the state of the center.

Despite the aging facility, Harvard’s sailing team has remained among the sport’s most successful programs. The team has won three Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association Open Team Race national titles in the past three years.

“We have fantastic sailors that churn out of here like nothing else,” Ayala-Vermont said. “And they do it in spite of the boathouse, not because of it.”

Ayala-Vermont, who leads alumni engagement efforts for the team, said the amount raised so far would fall far short of the cost for a new facility.

“One million wouldn’t even be a dent into anything for the program,” he said. “That would not move the needle.”

Besides being used for varsity practices and regattas during the spring and fall seasons, the facility also serves Harvard’s recreational sailing programs and the club sailing team. The Crimson Sailing Academy, which operates out of the center, runs learn-to-sail classes and racing clinics during the summer and fall.

Some sailors said the center’s distance from Harvard’s main campus may contribute to the lack of urgency in replacing it.

“It’s out of sight, out of mind, and it’s really a shame that with a team that has done so well historically,” Ayala-Vermont said. “I don’t even think they would consider this worthy of being a maintenance check.”

—Staff writer Julia A. Karabolli can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Samuel S. Rudavsky can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @samrudavsky.

—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.