The
Shelter Island Yacht Club
A Centennial History
1886-1986
A book written in 1986 to commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the founding of the club.
A Centennial History
1886-1986
A book written in 1986 to commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the founding of the club.
The S.I.Y.C. plowed a fairly steady course through the postwar economic and social turbulence popularly known as the gin and jazz era. Competent hands were at the wheel. Regardless of an urgent need to cope with major maintenance problems, long-delayed because of the Great War, top priority was accorded to the eradication of an even older obligation, the mortgage. Nevertheless the sum of one hundred dollars was budgeted to revive the Ladies Reception after an interval of four years!
Cleaning the Slate
The lingering indebtedness had been incurred in 1897 when the five year lease on the land expired. The Heights Association sold the land under and around the clubhouse to Melissa Otis for $2,000. Two days later she sold it to the Club for $3,000! Think about that!
Over the years various Club members helped to carry the debt. Available records reveal that in 1909 John Cassidy - who had loaned the cannon from his Yolande to start the first races in 1886 - took over the liability from W. M. K. Olcott, ostensibly for one year only. Olcott's identity is unknown, but it was the same John Cassidy who is known to have been handsomely rewarded for serving during the Civil War as a" stand in" for an heir to the Spreckels' sugar fortune. Later he built two cottages on Grand Avenue, one for himself and one to be rented.
In 1914 ex-Commodore Stephen P. Sturges shouldered the remaining indebtedness of $2,250. A New York attorney who lived in Brooklyn, Sturges had joined the Club in 1903, having acquired a house on Nostrand Parkway in part payment of a fee. By 1919 the amount was down to $1,650 when, thanks to the determined initiative of Commodore Marmont Edson, the remaining sum was raised by subscription. The Edsons, both father and son, were staunch, hardworking members of the Club.
The father, Jarvis Bonesteel Edson, Commodore in 1897-98, derived his considerable wealth from five dollar royalties on a new steam gauge. He built an appropriately big house on Riverside Drive in Manhattan and a very large cottage on Divinity Hill near the Chapel. He also had an impressively large steam yacht Viking, 190 feet overall, manned by a crew of ten. His only son inherited the cottage and a fortune which he had the misfortune to lose in the early radio industry. Marmont is remembered as a cordial host, who, when he was supervisor of the Heights Association, rode around on a motorcycle prepared to dispense summonses to traffic violators. Reminiscent of Frederick Schroeder patrolling the Heights on his white horse.
Edson's equally able successor as commodore was George N. Webster who had been the person responsible for raising $3,000 toward the $5,000 clubhouse enlargement plan which had to be abandoned on account of the Great War. The Websters, by the way, had the misfortune in 1920 to lose their waterfront cottage in one of the spectacular fires that occasionally visited the community.
Webster called a special meeting of the Club early in July 1921. Item number one was the urgent necessity of either repairing or replacing the dilapidated Point Dock which was vital to the Club but expendable so far as the actual owner was concerned. To be blunt, the Heights Association, having numerous other installations to maintain, was not deeply interested. After much palaver it was agreed that the Club would build a new dock in exchange for a twenty year lease at no rent. This was done but, as will soon be seen, property negotiations with the Heights Association were not yet at an end.
The Shelter Island One-Designs
Item number two on the agenda of the special meeting was the rebuilding of the badly diminished fleet and especially the acquisition of one-design boats for the resumption of a lively racing program. The previous season had seen only one race.
Acting with dispatch Marmont Edson arranged with the Sebonac Yacht Club of Southampton for the purchase of six one-designs, 28.6 feet overall, which had been built by Nevins of City Island. Having no special name, they were simply called one-designs, or occasionally Shelter Island one-designs. They were good, solid mahogany, gaff-rigged boats sailed by a three man crew. Eight more of the same boats were obtained from the Devon Yacht Club in East Hampton and all fourteen were quickly distributed to the S.I.YC. membership. Among the skippers who became particularly adept at handling them were Avery Keep, Waldo Kraemer, MacKay Sturges and Alfred Rogers, Jr.
A supplementary acquisition was a gasoline motor launch to ferry people back and forth to all of the new boats and to older ones as well. Rowboats used hitherto were much too slow and cumbersome, which in itself is an indication of the decline in yachting activity since the prewar years. Launch service had been available as early as 1905 when the need became apparent. The North Ferry had submitted a bid to supply such service, including regular runs to the Manhanset House, tor a guaranteed minimum of five dollars per day. The new launch was made possible "through the generosity" of Everett T. House.
Racing rapidly picked up. Fountain reports:
"Season Series races were held on Sunday afternoons. The lawns, docks and roads to the Yacht Club were packed with spectators and their cars. Soon the inhabitants of Greenport, attracted by the closeness of the contests and the fact that the contesting yachts sailed close to their shore for tidal protection, began to watch the contests. Seldom have yacht races attracted a larger or more interested gallery. "Special races were sailed on Saturdays. A socalled long distance race to the tip of Gardiner's Island or some other point was held once a year as was the round-the-Island race on Labor Day."
That things were beginning to go very well at the start of the 1923 season is indicated in a long article in the Shelter Island News. The Brigham boatyard in Greenport was having its "biggest year since World War I", not with naval contracts but with pleasure yachts. W. E. Iselin's Enchantress, Harold Vanderbilt's schooner Vagrant, J. B. Ford's sloop Varuna were among the fine yachts being readied for summer. The S.I.Y.C.'s one-designs were being overhauled and seven 28 foot launches were under construction. Nor was that all. John Weber's new Savanilla and E. T. House's Thais were also being fitted out.
Kitchenette and Hot Coffee
The clubhouse itself - still the original building girdled with piazzas - was now wired for electricity at a cost of $288.17 and a steward was employed. Club dues were raised in 1924 from $15 to $20 "wi.thout loss to total membership", and the regulations regarding flag officer uniforms were slightly revised, as were pennant specifications, to conform with "standard practice".
In his annual report - one of the few that surviveCommodore Howard Raymond spoke not of small steps but of" strides in the direction of resurrection of the social and sporting atmosphere which had in a measure become dormant". Specifically, he pointed to the new dock, the electric lights, a new rug in the main room and the demise of the old tennis court. "In short," he said, "the Club is in good condition." The point is worth making that Raymond, albeit in the automobile business, was a prime mover in organizing the Shelter Island Power and Light Company which made the Club's wiring possible.
This was also the year in which Waldo Kraemer, whose reminiscences have contributed so much color to this account, joined the ranks of officers as secretary. He had first joined the Club in 1914 and in 1984, less than a year before his death, the Yacht Club paid special tribute to him on the seventieth anniversary of his membership.
Young Waldo first came to Shelter Island with his parents at the turn of the century. For years they stayed at the Oxford House. He left Cornell University in 1912 with a degree as a mechanical engineer and the U. S. Navy in 1919 with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Thereafter for fifty years he remained associated with a series of marine equipment companies, specializing in ships' windows. His Shelter Island summers were devoted to the . affairs of the Heights Association, to the North Ferry Company which he served for many years as treasurer and then President, and, not least, to the Yacht Club to which he was devoted.
Improvements to the clubhouse continued with the leasing of a piano (whatever happened to the old victrola?), the addition of a cesspool and another sidewalk. By 1926 there was even a kitchenette, its purpose being to warm up wet skippers with hot coffee and contribute thereby to the peaceful settlement of protests and other ex post facto deliberations. Membership in the Yacht Racing Association of Long Island Sound was adopted as a more formal means of coping with the question of racing rules.
Golf tournaments and baseball games were offered as supplementary Yacht Club diversions but without much success, except for the annual soft ball game in front of the clubhouse. Pitting the married men against the bachelors frequently resulted in injury to at least one of the players. MacKay Sturges invariably appeared for this event wearing his Princeton letters and colors.
Water Sports met with a more enthusiastic response from the whole community, also the annual fireworks. But it was at about this time that the aquatic festival was moved back to the Beach Club where it had originated. One of the reasons for this change of venue was the presence of broken glass and other dangerous objects lurking in the shallow water, especially for those diving from the temporary tower erected on the dock.
All these distractions notwithstanding, the fact is that the most active element in the Club clung tenaciously to their prime interest: sailing. Inter-club racing, however, still suffered because all of the one-design boats, except for a few still in Devon's possession, now belonged to the S.I.Y.C. Another one-design class was needed.
The answer lay in the International Stars which were already being sailed at a couple of neighboring clubs. The first eight boats of this new class arrived from the New England Yacht Works very late in the 1925 season, but racing them began without delay. The Peconic-Gardiners Bay Fleet also acquired their Stars and for several years there was vigorous inter-club competition leading up to national and even international championships. Two local Stars, Edmund Poor's Tsan and David Roberts' Ruth, attained gold chevrons on the international level.
Wee Scots and Juniors
Two years after the introduction of the Stars the Wee Scots fleet made its marconi-rigged appearance, designed to offer young sailors a boat they could handle and enjoy. The first four Wee Scoffs [sic] were included along with thirteen one-designs and nine Stars as a third racing class in the Club's printed Schedule of Events for 1928. All three one design races were held on Sunday afternoons beginning at one-thirty.
By the following year the number of Wee Scots had doubled. To achieve official racing status, however, two formalities had to be cleared: first the new fleet - like the Shelter Island one-designs - must observe the rules of the Yacht Racing Association of Long Island Sound and, secondly, racers must be listed as authentic members of the S.I.Y.C. Consequently, a category of Junior Members was established.
By 1931, with the full encouragement of Commodore MacKay Sturges, whose father Stephen P. Sturges had been Commodore in 1911-1913, the process was carried a step further. The son, a Manhattan investment broker, brought the young sailors fully into the S.I.Y.C. with the organization of a semi-autonomous Junior Yacht Club. Chronologically - but not ontologically - the next developments belong in the following chapter, but for the sake of continuity, they will be included here.
Dues were fixed at ten dollars per year and membership limited to fifty boys and girls. The Juniors proceeded to the election of flag officers, namely, Morris Piersol, Commodore; Allen T owl, Vice Commodore; Bassett Morse, Rear Commodore; and Gregory Price, Secretary. A Wee Scot Fleet Captain was appointed as well as Race, Entertainment, Prize, and Transportation committees. In short, it was a teen-age version of the Senior Club.
Commodore Piersol presented a full report of J.Y.c. activities at the S.I.Y.c. annual meeting. The young club claimed forty-eight members although the forty-fifth anniversary booklet listed only thirty-five names. Furthermore, the new grouping received attention in the local press as "the only one of its kind (i.e. junior club) on Peconic Bay". Meanwhile, it engaged in spirited rivalry with a group of young people from the North Fork Yacht Club and promptly won the first leg of a cup offered by the latter club, a feat which the Senior S.I.Y.C. celebrated by entertaining the Junior team at dinner and the theatre.
The result of these various initiatives was a gratifying increment of new members overall. Beginning with only eighty in 1920, the number had risen to one hundred fifteen in mid-decade, then to one hundred twenty-four, one hundred forty-four and finally one hundred sixty-two before the effects of the great depression began to be felt and resignations started to outnumber applications. Of course, the increase was due in no small part to the inclusion of J.Y.C. members in the grand total.
The by-laws were not amended to permit women members to vote. Nevertheless, Commodore Nicholas Roberts proposed that the Club's physical plant be enlarged to make the clubhouse "the social center of the Island". His intention is not quite clear but a committee was appointed to pursue the idea. Nothing much came of it because chairman Marvin Schiebler had to report that extensive storm damage to the dock in October 1928 must first be repaired. In this connection there was talk of raising the building above flood level, but the raising occurred only to the annual dues.
The whole period leading up to Wall Street's Black Friday in October 1929 had been one of optimistic exuberance, not least on Shelter Island. In May the Shelter Islander reported that the ferry companies were unusually busy with special trips to meet passengers arriving from New York City on the four o'clock train. The Prospect House was redecorating both lobby and dining room with an "entire new color scheme". Summer residents were filling the boarding houses on weekends pending the reopening of their own cottages which, like closing the same in the fall, was a most complicated process. It involved opening up the shutters, unrolling the carpets, de-shrouding all furniture, and removing vaseline from the castiron stoves.
The steam ferry Catskill was resuming the Sag Harbor-Greenport-New Haven run, skirting Shelter Island and providing stunning views of the handsomely landscaped estates along the shore.
Meanwhile, James W. Gerard, former U. S. Ambassador to Germany, had purchased Ram Island and sold it to eager developers. Another large chunk of the Island was bought up by financier Otto H. Kahn, presumably as an investment and a hunting preserve. Known as Mashomack, this fine acreage remains intact, a valuable asset belonging to Nature Conservancy. Still another sizeable area at the head of West Neck Creek was bought by Stephen Baldwin, famous criminal lawyer of New York and father of novelist Faith Baldwin. His estate would later be converted into an attractive residential community named Hilo Shores.
None of these tycoons, however, seems to have made his affluent presence felt in the local Yacht Club as so many previous large landholders - Artemas Ward, F. M. Smith, Weber-Becker, and Stearns - had done. Of course, neither Gerard nor Kahn ever established summer residence on the Island. With or without support from that quarter the trustees and flag officers felt sufficiently sanguine to proceed with plans for future growth. The depression was merely a small cloud on the distant horizon and a second World War, despite much journalistic speculation regarding it, was inconceivable.
Local weather posed a larger problem. Only fourteen Stars and one-designs showed up for the July 4th races and only four were able to finish. Several of the Wee Scots were swamped in the high waves and had to be towed ingloriously home. Memory of that storm -like the 1919 freeze and the 1938 hurricane - is indelibly impressed on the minds of those who experienced it.
But the Water Sports festival a month later was a great success. It included dozens of events, the fifty yard swimming races for various age groups, plain and fancy diving, canoe tilting, water melon "wrestling" and lots of prizes. Some competitions were open only to S.I.Y.C. members, others to all contestants.
Except for the unforgettable storm on July 4 the sun still shone in an almost cloudless sky.
Pictures following Chapter 5
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Pictures | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Pictures | Chapter 6 |
Chapter 7 | Pictures | Chapter 8 | Pictures | Chapter 9 | Pictures | Chapter 10 | Pictures