Celebrating a 100 Years of Sailing in Martha’s Vineyard at Edgartown YC
Story & photos by Rick Bannerot/ OntheFlyPhoto.net
Q: What do you do when you’ve agree to hold a centennial regatta on Martha’s Vineyard in the middle of July?
A: You invite and organize a spectrum of sailboat fleets (and sailors from ages 6 to 86) including Zim Prams, Optimists, Club 420s, Shields, Rhodes 19s, J/70s, Herreshoff 12.5s, Wianno Seniors, and a passel of different catboats all racing to celebrate Edgartown Yacht Club’s 100th Annual Regatta.
The youngest sailors in EYC’s 100th Annual Regatta had a blast with a special “coached” class in the club’s Zim Prams.
Situated in the middle of Edgartown Harbor, the 118-year-old Edgartown Yacht Club (EYC) did not stray from their mission statement, “to bring together those who have an abiding interest in yachting, sailboat racing, seamanship and competition in the highest Corinthian spirit.”
The very first EYC Regatta took place in 1924 from a rented cottage on the Edgartown waterfront. Over a hundred boats, many of them gaff-rigged catboats, took part in a colorful parade of sails and nearby racing along the sandy shores around town.
To celebrate their 100th Annual Regatta, EYC hosted nine classes on various racecourses with a host of committee boats, mark boats, coach boats, spectator boats, and on-the-water judging (with three of four judges US Sailing Certified National Judges). It’s been said that takes a village to raise a child, but that’s nothing compared to running a 9-ring circus in a 5-day window, with some very sketchy weather thrown in.
Watching Regatta Chair Elizabeth “Tot” Balay in action, you’d think she’s a great fan of Yoda and that funny little green guy’s philosophy: “Do or do not. There is no try.” Tot put her own stamp on this event with the kindly, encouraging mantra, “Why, you ask? To which I say, ‘Why not?’ Oh, and let’s put on an ice cream social for all the kids ages 86 and under!”
Kevin Deyett’s Bit-O-Honey notched six bullets in six races to win the Shields New England Championship.
The first two days focused on junior sailing with over seventy Optis on various courses, thirty-nine C420s and eight Zim Prams. “The Opti Green circle was for young sailors, focusing not so much on winning as on having fun and learning how to ‘regatta,’” said Tot. “We also added a Green “coached” class, which accommodated an even more beginner echelon. These were kids from our yacht club who wanted to be involved, but weren’t ready to sail upwind and downwind around marks by themselves. We set them up in our colorful Zim Prams and had coaches helping them learn how to manage a rudder, sail, boom and a centerboard, in a controlled environment just off the beach. They had a blast.”
The bigger boats took over, with the Shields class racing for their New England Championships in gray, occasionally damp, and breezy conditions with gusts to 20. They managed to get three complete races before weather again made its presence keenly felt.
Saturday dawned gray, with some ominous afternoon weather promised for the other centerboard and keelboat classes. After a 90-minute delay to let the electrically-charged early weather roll through, the harbor start gun sounded, the sun broke through the now-scattered clouds, and the intrepid EYC Race Committee flotilla headed to their respective assigned courses.
In a nod to the first event in 1924, an organized parade of catboats promenaded past the Edgartown waterfront to the delight of the residents and tourists drawn to Edgartown for the Centennial festivities. Many of the participating Wianno Seniors, Herreshoff 12.5s and catboats came over from the Massachusetts mainland for the historic event.
Wianno Seniors beating into a freshening breeze
After the harbor parade, eight vintage and modern catboats, in two respective classes, set out on a distance race from an assigned EYC Race Committee boat anchored just outside the harbor. They sailed around Squash Meadow government mark and back to Edgartown Harbor, with many enjoying the freshening breeze right by hugging the beach in their shallow-drafted hulls.
Nineteen Wianno Seniors got in two races and twenty Herreshoff 12.5s sailed three races Saturday. Both fleets enjoyed near-perfect racing conditions in 14- to 17 knots along with some fetch building to the delight of the shutterbugs (if not bowmen). Racing was characterized by many lead changes throughout the afternoon, especially in the Herreshoffs.
The crew of Carol Childs’ Wianno Senior Rebel reveling in the conditions
Unfortunately, the intended three-day regatta was shortened when more inclement weather arrived Sunday, with gusts over 30. “That’s a gear-buster, not a gear-tester, especially for the classic Herreshoffs and Wiannos, said Tot. “They are like racing fine furniture, many of them antiques, and it becomes time-consuming and expensive to fix them after racing in these conditions. The classic boats were a grand sight and we loved having them race at Edgartown for our Centennial.”
Fittingly, during Sunday’s award ceremony, George Eberstadt, skipper of the winning H 12.5 Persephone , said, “A special thank you goes to the EYC race committee and the whole EYC team. They are all at the top of their game and ran the races beautifully.” ■
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The Edgartown Yacht Club
Edgartown yacht club.
94 Peases Point Way, Edgartown, MA 02539, USA
The Edgartown Tennis Center holds senior and junior events each summer, including yearly tournaments with clubs at East Chop, West Chop and Vineyard Haven. Adults have competed in the Spectator Bowl against the Nantucket Yacht Club since 1950, and junior players now compete too. There are seasonal tournaments to crown champions among juniors, men, women, singles, seniors, doubles and mixed doubles. The instruction and clinics run each summer by the Tennis Center staff remain unrivaled on the Island. See more
Jr. Inter Club Match
Mixed Doubles Round Robin
Mens Scramble
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Last Gasp Champs & Junior Tennis
The Edgartown Tennis Center holds senior and junior events each summer, including yearly tournaments with clubs at East Chop, West Chop and Vineyard Haven. Adults have competed in the Spectator Bowl against the Nantucket Yacht Club since 1950, and junior players now compete too. There are seasonal tournaments to crown champions among juniors, men, women, singles, seniors, doubles and mixed doubles. The instruction and clinics run each summer by the Tennis Center staff remain unrivaled on the Island.
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- Neither the Great Depression nor World War II brought a halt to the annual regatta.
Regatta Celebrates a Century of Sailing
Louisa hufstader.
- Thursday, July 6, 2023 - 4:27pm
Hundreds of competitive sailors from the Vineyard and Cape Cod are making their way to Edgartown harbor this week for one of the oldest sailing regattas in the United States.
The Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta celebrates its 100th birthday this summer, growing from a single day of racing in 1924 to a five-day series with more than 100 boats registered to compete this year. The regatta begins on Wednesday, July 12.
“There are not many clubs who have been running regattas as long as we have,” said EYC race committee chair Elizabeth (Tot) Balay, who also chairs the regatta centennial committee. “We started, and we just never stopped.”
Neither the Great Depression nor World War II brought a halt to the annual regatta, she said.
“There were always people who cared about it. There were always sailors who wanted to be out there competing [and] testing themselves against sailors from other clubs,” Ms. Balay said.
Along with its longevity, the regatta is known for its party scene, with sailors mingling at the club after the last race of each day, gathering for casual dinners there and dancing to live music at Saturday night’s Regatta Ball.
While those activities are limited to club members and guests, anyone can watch the races, either by boat — keeping a good distance from the course — or from shore.
“There’s going to be great views from the Chappy shore, from Lighthouse Beach, from Fuller Street Beach and from State Beach, because the [larger boats] are sailing in Cow Bay,” Ms. Balay said, referring to the 25-foot-long Wianno Seniors and 30-foot Shields sloops racing over the weekend.
“You’ll have some beautiful views of those classics, sailing long courses,” she said.
In partnership with Vineyard Preservation Trust, the yacht club also is inviting the public to a centennial exhibition of regatta history, opening July 12 at the Carnegie Heritage Center on North Water street.
Titled A Century of Sail, the show brings together vintage regatta photographs and EYC heirlooms such as race chronometers — a highly precise type of clock to determine start and finish times — and wooden half-models of the various boat designs used in club racing over the years.
The exhibition was initially scheduled for one week, but Carnegie program director Sissy Biggers asked to keep it on display for a month so that more Island visitors can learn about the regatta’s long history in Edgartown.
“A hundred years of sailing is certainly a story to be told, and the Edgartown Yacht Club has been our neighbor for more than 100 years,” Ms. Biggers said.
To give non-sailors a sense of what happens on the water, the Carnegie show includes a chart of Edgartown harbor traced with all of the different race courses, as well as some of the signals used by the race committee to communicate with skippers on the water.
The exhibition’s carved, painted half-models of Beach Boats, International 110s, Rovers and other bygone classes help tell the story of how yacht club like Edgartown’s contributed to the rise in this country of one-design sailboat racing, in which identical boats compete against each other, Ms. Balay said.
In 1905, when the club was founded, American skippers sailed a variety of crafts, often designed and built to their owners’ specifications. When competing against one another, as in the EYC’s annual Round the Island race and other ocean races, such disparate boats require handicap-style calculations, based on design and length as well as elapsed time, to determine the winners.
In one-design racing, which originated in late 19th-century Ireland, boats of the same model compete against one another in real time, with the winner crossing the finish line first.
As North American club sailors adopted the practice, regattas offered the waterborne equivalent of a level playing field, with the same number of crew and the same equipment aboard every boat.
Famous one designs from the 20th century include the Herreshoff 12 1/2, Optimist and Club 420 dinghies, all of which will be represented in this year’s regatta. The gaff-rigged Wianno Seniors, designed on the Cape, have been taking part in the regatta since 1928, Ms. Balay said.
“They are a big part of our history,” she said, adding that Wianno skipper Bill Lawrence of West Dennis will be racing his 40th Edgartown regatta this year, accompanied by his son Sam.
Ms. Balay, an accomplished skipper whose own sons became the family’s fourth generation of EYC sailors when they raced as juniors in the 1990s, also noted that women have been regatta competitors throughout its history.
“Women were racing all the way back to the beginning,” she said. “They were always in the fleets...Our dad got trounced regularly by girls who were racing against him in Rovers.”
Diana (Dinny) Dozier, now 84 and a perennial competitor, is registered to race her Herreshoff 12 1/2, ’Twas Brillig, this weekend.
And while the club’s race committee and flag officers were exclusively male for more than half a century, women now play a leading role in race management, Ms. Balay said.
“Nowadays, you go out and sometimes it’s all women [managing] the course,” she said.
The 100th Edgartown regatta begins Wednesday with a two-day junior competition, complete with its own dinners, teen dance and awards ceremony for Optimist and Club 420 sailors.
Three days of Shields racing, doubling as the class’s New England championship, begin Friday and the two-day regatta for Wiannos, Herreshoffs, J/70s and Rhodes 19s begins Saturday.
Saturday also brings the annual Catboat Parade of Sail, a separately-organized event the EYC will recognize with a party and a gun salute as the classic boats pass by the clubhouse at the foot of Main street, followed by a 1 p.m. catboat race in the harbor and the regatta awards dinner on Saturday night.
The Century of Sail exhibition will be on display in the Carnegie’s front rooms July 12 through August 5, Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. More information about the regatta is posted on the EYC website, edgartownyc.org.
Gazette senior writer Louisa Hufstader and Edgartown Yacht Club race committee chair Elizabeth (Tot) Balay are sisters whose family has been associated with club racing since the 1940s. Their late father, former EYC commodore Peter Hufstader, established the club’s junior sailing program in the early 1970s.
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Edgartown Yacht Club 41°23'18.11N - 70°30'39.73W. Established in 1905, The mission of the Edgartown Yacht Club is to bring together those who have an abiding interest in yachting, sailboat racing, seamanship, and competition in the highest Corinthian spirit. Learn About Our History . Edgartown Race Weekend
The Edgartown Yacht Club was founded in 1905 to perpetuate the maritime traditions of Edgartown and Martha's Vineyard. The mission of the Club is to bring together those who have an abiding interest in yachting, sailboat racing, seamanship and competition in the highest Corinthian spirit. The Club seeks to encourage the traditions of ...
The Edgartown Yacht Club is a private yacht club in Edgartown, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. The club was founded on January 5, 1905, and Edward H. Raymond was named its first commodore. The Edgartown Yacht Club's current clubhouse was completed in 1927, and is on Dock Street in downtown Edgartown.
Edgartown Yacht Club 1 Dock St | PO Box 1309 Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-4361 | [email protected] EYC Sailing Center 25 Chappaquiddick Road Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-9399. EYC Tennis & Fitness Center 94 Peases Point Way Edgartown, MA 02539 ...
Edgartown Yacht Club, Edgartown, Massachusetts. 1,621 likes · 19 talking about this · 3,199 were here. The Edgartown Yacht Club Edgartown Yacht Club | Edgartown MA
Edgartown Yacht Club Racing. 1,896 likes · 5 talking about this. Established in 1905, the Edgartown Yacht Club has a long history of providing exceptional yacht racing in the waters around Martha's...
The Edgartown Yacht Club perpetuates the maritime traditions of Martha's Vineyard and Edgartown and encourages friendly competition on the waters around the Island and ashore - the mission of the Club since it was founded in 1905. Those first few years of the twentieth century were a time of great change in the town of Edgartown.
The Edgartown Yacht Club has played a leading role in perpetuating the maritime tradition of Martha's Vineyard and Edgartown. Edgartown Yacht ClubAt the turn of the twentieth century, many prominent summer and permanent residents belonged to the Home Club. The clubhouse, formerly the home of Captain Alexander Fisher, an old time whaler, still ...
© Edgartown Yacht Club 2017. All Rights Reserved 1 Dock Street Edgartown, MA 02539 Phone: (508) 627-4361 Fax: (508) 627-7565 Email: [email protected]
An interview with Elizabeth "Tot" Balay on Edgartown Yacht Club's 100th Annual Regatta. If you love history, time-honored sailing traditions, and competitive sailboat racing, put the centennial edition of the Edgartown Yacht Club's Annual Regatta (July 11-16) on your radar. Impressively, this regatta was founded before the majority of ...
Edgartown Yacht Club 1 Dock St | PO Box 1309 Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-4361 | [email protected] EYC Sailing Center 25 Chappaquiddick Road Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-9399. EYC Tennis & Fitness Center 94 Peases Point Way Edgartown, MA 02539 ...
The Edgartown Yacht Club is pleased to welcome yachtsmen from fellow yacht clubs belonging to U. S. Sailing Association and to offer the use of the Club's facilities. This courtesy is available for a maximum of three days per year, and only for those yachtsmen who cruise into Edgartown on board their yachts. Visitors arriving by public transport must send a letter of introduction in advance of ...
Situated in the middle of Edgartown Harbor, the 118-year-old Edgartown Yacht Club (EYC) did not stray from their mission statement, "to bring together those who have an abiding interest in yachting, sailboat racing, seamanship and competition in the highest Corinthian spirit." The very first EYC Regatta took place in 1924 from a rented cottage on the Edgartown waterfront.
Edgartown Yacht Club (EYC) will celebrate a full century of competitive sailing this year with its 100th Annual Regatta on July 12-16. The regatta first took place in 1924 and was run from a rented cottage on the waterfront at the Harborside Inn. More than 100 vessels - mainly small gaff-rigged Catboats - took part in a festival of sail ...
Edgartown Yacht Club The Edgartown Tennis Center holds senior and junior events each summer, including yearly tournaments with clubs at East Chop, West Chop and Vineyard Haven. Adults have competed in the Spectator Bowl against the Nantucket Yacht Club since 1950, and junior players now compete too.
Edgartown Yacht Club 1 Dock St | PO Box 1309 Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-4361 | [email protected] EYC Sailing Center 25 Chappaquiddick Road Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-9399. EYC Tennis & Fitness Center 94 Peases Point Way Edgartown, MA 02539 ...
The Edgartown Yacht Club Regatta celebrates its 100th birthday this summer, growing from a single day of racing in 1924 to a five-day series with more than 100 boats registered to compete this year. The regatta begins on Wednesday, July 12.
Edgartown Yacht Club was founded in 1905, and the 100th Annual Regatta first took place in 1924, run from a rented cottage on the waterfront at the Harborside Inn. More than 100 vessels - mainly small gaff-rigged Catboats - took part in a festival of sail that delighted participants and spectators alike. Over the decades since, the event has ...
02/26/23. The Edgartown Yacht Club is a historic club located in Edgartown, Massachusetts. Founded in 1905, the club has a long and rich history in the region, with a focus on sailing and boating activities. Over the years, the Edgartown Yacht Club has established itself as a premier destination for boaters and sailing enthusiasts in the area.
Yacht Scoring is a featured packed 100% web based regatta administration and scoring system that simplifies the task of competitor registration, event management, competitor and media communications while providing results in near-real time to competitors and the World following your event on the internet. ... The Edgartown Yacht Club Edgartown ...
Edgartown Yacht Club 1 Dock St | PO Box 1309 Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-4361 | [email protected] EYC Sailing Center 25 Chappaquiddick Road Edgartown, MA 02539 (508) 627-9399. EYC Tennis & Fitness Center 94 Peases Point Way Edgartown, MA 02539 ...
Edgartown Yacht Club 1 Dock St PO Box 1309 Edgartown, MA 02539 Phone: (508) 627-4361 Email: [email protected]
Yacht Scoring is a featured packed 100% web based regatta administration and scoring system that simplifies the task of competitor registration, event management, competitor and media communications while providing results in near-real time to competitors and the World following your event on the internet. ... The Edgartown Yacht Club Edgartown ...