Yale Corinthian Yacht Club

This article is about Yale Corinthian Yacht Club. For other uses of the term "Yale Club", see Yale Club (disambiguation).
Yale Corinthian Yacht Club
YCYC viewed from the dock
Founded 1881
Clubhouse 179 Clark Avenue, Branford, Connecticut 06405
Country  United States
Commodore Andrew Kurzrok
One-Design fleets 420 (20)
Flying Junior (12)
Laser (4)
Website www.yale.edu/ycyc

Yale Corinthian Yacht Club is the home yacht club for the Yale University Coed and Women's Sailing Teams. It is located at 179 Clark Avenue in Branford, Connecticut. Founded in 1881, it is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world.

It is generally abbreviated as "YCYC" and is affectionately pronounced "yic-yic."

Description of the Facility

Fleet

YCYC is home to the fleet of the Yale University Sailing Team's dinghies. These include 20 new Vanguard Club 420s, 12 Vanguard Flying Juniors (FJs), and 4 Vanguard Lasers.

History

The Fifties

According to H. Coleman Norris, Yale '53 (JE):

The beginning of the fifties found the YCYC with four wooden Dyer dinghies, purchased I know not when. Being wooden, lapstrake boats, they were sturdy, but unable to withstand the neglect inherent in ownership by a rather nomadic, casual student sailing club. During my prep school days I had enjoyed considerable summer success sailing scows in Wisconsin, and so when I appeared on the New Haven scene in September 1949, I immediately joined the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, hoping to be able to represent the University in sailing competition. In the years immediately prior to 1949, the YCYC had done extremely well in InterCollegiate competition, and I was eager to join the team. Easily done, as it turned out, because the sailing stars, especially Dick Carter, had graduated, and after their exodus I was one of the few YCYC members that had any racing experience whatsoever. As I recall, David Toy, a California Snipe sailor and I, both Class of '53, were about the only YCYC members who had much of any racing experience as skippers. And both David and I, sloop racers, learned quickly that sailing without a jib was very, very different than sailing a balanced boat. We were rotten, just rotten.

The four Dyers were kept in Milford, upside down on the beach, with the sails and other paraphernalia in a shed at the edge of the Milford Yacht Club property. Since the YCYC had no University support, the operation was shoestring, to say the least. The Dyers were intended only for practice, and all competitions were staged at the magnificent facilities of Harvard/MIT (shared on the Charles River), Brown, the Coast Guard Academy, Kings Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, the latter a really significant drive pre-Interstate system.

Fiberglass was brand new, then, and MIT had designed in fiberglass a new "Tech Dinghy", built by the Beetle Boat Company of New Bedford to withstand the rigors of college neglect, rather than built for speed. When I became Commodore in my sophomore year, I embarked on a program to raise money to replace our four tired wooden Dyers. Each hull cost $569.00, delivered, sans sails (down from a list of $660.00 - quantity discount). Sails were ordered out of the new synthetic material called Orlon, 3 1/2 oz, for $72.00 each, including racing numbers, battens and bag from Ratsey & Lapthorn of City Island, NYC.

I did not turn out to be a very effective fund raiser, but I managed to amass funds for one boat, prevail on Harry Anderson to donate the second and, con my Dad to (unconsciously) donate the other two. In the spring of 1953, with our four new boats, we moved from the kind hospitality of the Milford Yacht Club to the Branford Yacht Club facilities, an easier venue to get to from campus. As a thank you to Milford, we gave the tired Dyers to Milford for use as rowing tenders for their members.

Renovations

With additional funding from an anonymous donor, the yacht club underwent a major renovation in the spring of 2002 that was completed in the fall of that year.

Yale University Sailing Team

The Yale Sailing Team participates in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association.

Current Captains

Notable Alumni

Summer Program

The yacht club hosts a summer program annually for youth and adults in the interest of teaching novices to sail and race while partially funding the college team's racing activity.[1]

References

  1. ↑ "YCYC Summer Program". Retrieved 2009-11-03.

External links

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