By Susan Okula
Messing around in boats is second nature to Mike Sherwood. And he’s also a natural for steering for the Annapolis Dragon Boat Club.
While the club has 80 plus members, only a handful (both men and women) stand ready to grab the 9-foot steering oar and head to the back of the boat. As a steersperson, Mike stands behind a dragon boat’s 20-person paddling crew (who are all seated) and is responsible for selecting and keeping the boat on a steady and safe course.
Mike, a retired American Airlines pilot, joined the club as a way to support his wife Deb in May 2013. Deb had recently finished a long year of breast cancer surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and the couple knew that the motion of paddling is beneficial in building strength and health for breast cancer survivors. They both started as paddlers. “We really liked it,” Mike says. “We really liked the people too.”
During one practice, coach Peter Van de Castle, another accomplished steersperson, wanted to coach from the bow. So he asked Mike to take the helm. Mike, who had decades of experience at the tiller of a sailboat, didn’t hesitate. “The hard part at first was staying in the boat,” he says with a laugh. (Any club steersperson will say keeping one’s balance while standing in a low-to-the water dragon boat is something to pay definite attention to!)
Mike started sailing in the 1960s as kid in Texas, and boating became a lifelong hobby. After graduating from the University of Houston, he joined the Navy and learned to fly. For eight years in the 1970s and 1980s, Mike flew early warning planes off the aircraft carriers USS Kitty Hawk and USS Coral Sea. Then as a civilian he flew passenger jets for American Airlines, based mostly out of Washington.
He moved to Annapolis in 1985 and met Deb, a flight attendant, soon after. The couple today have two adult children, Jeff and Ellen. And whenever he could, Mike kept up his boating hobby. He has owned many a sailing and power craft.
Mike ran our club’s operations committee for three years, and was responsible for researching and selecting the club’s second boat in 2017. When the two boats are out on the water during race practices, Mike is frequently the steersperson on one of them. He also really likes to take a single boat and crew out on non-practice days, when the paddling is more relaxed.
“I really enjoy the people and that’s why I’m there,” Mike says about the club. “I can see how much good the club does. It’s great to see everyone so involved and enjoying it so much.”
