History of the St. Louis Sailing Center, Inc. (SLSC)

The St. Louis Sailing Center has a rich legacy reaching back to the mid 1970's when Dick and Kathy Oberle took over the Eddie Creek Marina on Kentucky Lake with the goal of becoming the greater region's main dealership of sailboats. The Oberles continued the dealership of Hobie Catamarans and added several large keel sailboat manufacturers such as Beneteau, O'Day and Catalina.

As customers complained about the location of Eddie Creek Sailing Center being too far from their home bases, the Oberle's expanded to Nashville and later to Chattanooga with Sailing Centers in each location. In the early 1980's when their son, Jeff, graduated with a degree in psychology during a recession, the Oberle's took the opportunity to set Jeff up in St. Louis to better service their St. Louis customers. The St. Louis Sailing Center (SLSC) was opened near its current location right next to the large Earth City storm water retention lake. Jeff used the lake to run an active sail school and rental business. The other advantage of this location is that Bridgeton was one of the only cities that allowed big boats to be stored outside.

When Brigdeton's Northwest Industrial Park was being built, the Oberle's purchased land in the Industrial Park and built the current building for SLSC in 1990. Then in the beginning of new century, Jeff felt called to stop working in business and join a seminary. His hope was to become a Christian counselor finally leveraging his university degree. It was at this time that Chris Parsonage, a long time customer of the Oberle's from the Eddie Creek Sailing Center days, came to SLSC to upgrade his sailboat. Chris had just sold his barge business and was eager to get into a bigger, better sailboat. When Chris found out that Jeff was trying to sell SLSC, Chris ended buying not only a new sailboat but the entire business!

During his 7.5 year tenure of the St. Louis Sail Center, Chris achieved healthy sales driven in a large part by the new website he had launched. Chris focused on selling large sailboats but was a dealer for the following brands:Catalina sailboatsHunter (trailerable to large sailboats)Hobiecat SailboatsHobie Kayaks Laser Performance (Laser and Sunfish)Precision (12-23 foot trailerable sailboats)Honda (small outboard engines)RS (UK sailboats)The other products and services SLSC provided were:

• Sail School at Carlyle Lake on one older Precision keel sailboat
• Charters and flotillas - Broker for Moorings & Sunsail
• Accessories sales
• Repairs
• Consignment / used boats sales

2007 was a record year for the Sailing Center, prompting Chris to expand into the Kansas City market where he opened a store that his daughter would run.

Then the economy turned south. Large sailboat sales tanked. The new store in KC was having a hard time starting up. By 2009, Chris was looking at various options. He closed the KC store. In 2010, He sold the Catalina dealership to a marina at the Lake of the Ozarks. He then sold the sailing school to one of his instructors, Bill Learn. He began talking to various parties about selling the St. Louis Sailing Center.

In June 2010, Cyril Narishkin, who had been searching for a business to buy, came to the Sailing Center to buy a replacement part for his Hobie catamaran. When he found out that the business was for sale, he began conversations with Chris. Bottomline, Cyril and his wife Amy not only bought that replacement part, but also bought the St. Louis Sailing Center on 30 September 2010.

Cyril and Amy renamed the business St. Louis Sail and Paddle, to refocus the business on kayaks, sailing dingies, and trailerable sailboats up to 27 feet. Large keel sailboats will be sold as well, but will not be the primary focus. The other goal of the new business was to deliver a service model to the various sailboat marinas in the area, leveraging the 20 year experience of Larry Dieker