Yacht Clubs

Who would have thought that a 26 year old sailor would have come up with the idea of running a new type of level regatta, have it approved by a yacht club board, and then run with it for 39 years?! Certainly Don Finkle did not, who happened to be that 26 year old. The Youngstown Yacht Club Level Regatta took on a life of its own and as Don said, “Although I don’t think they had any idea what it would turn into, neither did I!” This regatta would become the precursor to the now famous NOOD (National Offshore One Design) regattas. Prior to the inception of this regatta, boats sailed in that area using the IOR rule.

When I first went up to the Collingwood area to ski as a girlfriend to my future husband, little did I realize that I would one day teach skiing part time in Grey Country, wherein lies the Town of Blue Mountains. I had no idea there was even a harbour in Thornbury, much less a yacht club, until I was invited out to crew on a C&C 27, Sassy J in a ladies’ race with a fellow ski instructor, Tobyn Londos. Needless to say we had a fabulous time; Tobyn accomplished her first race with an all-female crew, and I met another friend, who turned out, at the time, to be the commodore of the Thornbury Yacht Club (TYC), Paul Sandiford. Paul and his wife, Leeanne, own a Dufour 35 called Mumm’s. They fell in love with TYC after a cruise to Christian Island and joined in 1999.

This will be a familiar question for most boaters when they first buy a boat and need to keep it someplace; what does one look for in a yacht club or marina? Is it the convenience, the atmosphere, the clubhouse, the docks, the racing, the cruising, the price, or the people? In this economy it may just end up being all of the above. However, what is becoming very clear time and again is that it tends to come down to the people you meet and the friends that you make.

Canadian Yachting Association (CYA) has recently rebranded itself as ‘Sail Canada’. Canadian Yachting Magazine interviewed Sail Canada’s President, Alan Lombard, and Executive Director, Paddy Boyd, to learn about this change, how it fits in with the organization’s strategic plan and how it benefits Canadian boaters and sailors. Canadian Yachting (CY):  The move to rebranding CYA as Sail Canada is a big one.  What was the catalyst for this change?

The Lake of the Woods area comprises one of the natural wonders of North America. At over 70 miles long and wide, with more than 105,000 km of shoreline — which is more than Lake Superior, and more than 1,400 islands it is easy to see why. The lake is found in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the state of Minnesota. The northern end is home to deep, clear water and the rugged Canadian Shield, contrasted to shallow water and sandy bottoms at the southern end. Boaters see wildlife that includes Canadian geese, beavers, deer, bears, common loons, moose, pelicans, and bald eagles.

To all those volunteers who came together to make something happen from small beginnings: this story will sound very familiar. “On a cold Sunday morning, sometime in the middle of the winter of 1956, a group of gentlemen met and laid the plans for what was to become the St. Margaret Sailing Club (SMSC) in Nova Scotia. It was led by a man who was later to become the first commodore, Dr. Arthur Murphy. At the time, the head of St. Margaret’s Bay (Schooner Cove) was the cottage area for Greater Halifax,” reminisces Lee Myrhaugen, past commodore from 2001–2003.