The American Yacht Club is a

yacht club A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting. Description Yacht clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations. Yacht or sailing clubs have either a mari ...

located in

Rye, New York Rye is a coastal suburb of New York City in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the Town of Rye, which has more land area than the city. The City of Rye, formerly the Village of Rye, was part of the Town until it r ...

distinguished by a long history of competitive racing and leadership in growing the sport among women and junior sailors. American_Yacht_Club_aerial

History

The American Yacht Club, also known as AYC, was founded on May 1, 1883. Its original 15 incorporators were: William P. Clyde, president of the

Clyde Steamship Company Clyde Steamship Company was a steamship transportation company connecting New York City to Florida as well as routes to Boston and Providence, Cuba, New Orleans, and various Keys. William P. Clyde organized the company in 1874 and acquired various ...

; Washington E. Connor; Alfred de Cordova; William B. Dowd;

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made him ...

and his son

George Jay Gould George Jay Gould I (February 6, 1864 – May 16, 1923) was a financier and the son of Jay Gould. He was himself a railroad executive, leading the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (DRGW), Western Pacific Railroad (WP), and the Manhatta ...

; Jesse R. Grant; Cornelius Hatch; James B. Houston; Frank K. Lawrence; Christopher Meyer; Thomas C. Platt; Henry O. Taylor; Cornelius F. Timpson; and George S. Scott. Many of these men worked in the shipbuilding and engineering fields. Unlike the

New York Yacht Club The New York Yacht Club (NYYC) is a private social club and yacht club based in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1844 by nine prominent sportsmen. The members have contributed to the sport of yachting and yacht design. ...

, American Yacht Club had the particular object of promoting the development of

steam yacht A steam yacht is a class of luxury or commercial yacht with primary or secondary steam propulsion in addition to the sails usually carried by yachts. Origin of the name The English steamboat entrepreneur George Dodd (1783–1827) used the term ...

s. One of the principal founders

, had his 228-foot steam yacht, ''

Atalanta Atalanta (; grc-gre, Ἀταλάντη, Atalantē) meaning "equal in weight", is a heroine in Greek mythology. There are two versions of the huntress Atalanta: one from Arcadia, whose parents were Iasus and Clymene and who is primarily known ...

'', built that same year. On August 7, 1884, AYC held its first regatta which was also the first race of steam yachts ever held in America.

Clubhouses

Club members initially gathered in rooms in Manhattan on Madison Avenue and

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

. They briefly considered making a home on

Charles Island Charles Island is a 14-acre (57,000 m2) island located roughly 0.5 mile (1 km) off the coast of Milford, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound centered at . Charles Island is accessible from shore via a tombolo (locally referred to as a san ...

in Milford going as far as to place a down payment on the property in the spring of 1884 before pivoting to the purchase of land in Rye from the Wainwright family. A large Queen Anne-style clubhouse was finally constructed on the tip of Milton Point on

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...

in 1894. The architect of this building was Edward A. Sargent. On July 27, 1951, a fire devastated the club house and a new structure was erected for $375,000 under the leadership of Commodore William L. Crow. The architect of the colonial styled building was Jonathan Butler of Rye.

In the 20th century

The club always included sailboats and today many different designs can be found moored in the club's harbor or competing with other boats from around the country or the world in high performance regattas. Boats in the AYC fleet include everything from antique, classic boats to foil models like

Moths Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

and

Waszp The Waszp is an Australian, single-handed, hydrofoiling sailboat that was designed by Andrew McDougall as a one-design racer for youth and adults, and first built in 2016. The design was named 2017 ''Best One-Design'' in ''Sailing World's' ...

s. The composition of AYC's membership and its governing board has also changed with many women sailing both on their own and through a program called Women on the Water (WOW). In 2021, AYC voted in its first woman flag officer as Rear Commodore.

Women's sailing

AYC has attracted many accomplished women competitors and sailing mentors including Adams Cup Champions Lorna Whittelsey Hibberd (sailing out of Indian Harbor Yacht Club, 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1934); Frances Wakeman (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938); Sylvia Shethar (1939, 1940, 1947); and Allegra "Leggie" Mertz (1947, 1950, 1954, 1959, 1963). Mertz was president of the Women's National Yacht Racing Association and in 1956, she envisioned a day when there would be an Olympic women's sailing team. She was also president of the International Blue Jay Class Association.

Courtenay Becker-Dey Courtenay Becker-Dey (born April 27, 1965) is an American competitive sailor and Olympic medalist. She was born in Greenwich, Connecticut. She won a bronze medal in the Europe class at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She also competed at t ...

brought home a bronze medal for sailing in the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. More recently, AYC women won the 2016 International Keelboat Championship in a one design J/70 with Clemmie Everett at the helm of a crew that included Alix Hahn, Carolyn Russell and Erin Sprague.

Junior sailing

AYC has long had an active junior sailing program. In 1925, shortly after the founding of the Junior Sailing Association of Long Island (JSA) in 1924, the club developed a new class of boats specifically for junior sailors. This initiative under the leadership of then Commodore

Philip Mallory Philip Rogers Mallory (November 11, 1885 - November 16, 1975) was an American businessman and the founder of the company that is now known as Duracell International. Rather than making a career in his family's shipping business, he founded his own ...

, introduced a new type of boat called the Wee Scotts. AYC's role in promoting sailing has continued with its active participation in the JSA. The club's Young American Junior Big Boat Sailing Team, established in 2013, have placed first in the 2016 Bermuda Race (Class 10) while other AYC junior sailor honors include winning the Stephens Brothers Youth Division Trophy and Storm Trysail Boomerang Trophy. In 2018, American Yacht Club became the home base for the new non-profit Young American Sailing Academy, Inc. (YASA).

Regattas and trophies

The club awards several perpetual trophies for racing including the Joyette Trophy for PHRF Division Racing; Zilph Trophy for One-Design; the Cynosure Trophy for the ORC Division; and the Roger Sherman Memorial Trophy In concert with

Larchmont Yacht Club Larchmont Yacht Club is a private, members-only yacht club situated on Larchmont Harbor in the Village of Larchmont, in Westchester County, New York. History The club was founded in June 1880 by Frank L. Anthony, Fred W. Flint, William C. ...

, AYC has hosted the Robie Pierce Regatta, a regatta for sailors with disabilities, for more than 11 years.

Environmental advocacy

When a proposal to build a bridge from Oyster Bay to Rye was proposed and threatened the ecology of Long Island Sound, American Yacht Club led by Hugh Cuthbert partnered with Sheldrake Yacht Club to lead a "boatercade" in protest.

Notable members

Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer ( ; born Pulitzer József, ; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and newspaper publisher of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and the ''New York World''. He became a leading national figure in ...

, newspaper publisher, owner of steam yacht Romola * Henry Flagler, American industrialist *

Frederick William Vanderbilt Frederick William Vanderbilt (February 2, 1856 – June 29, 1938) was a member of the American Vanderbilt family. He was a director of the New York Central Railroad for 61 years, and also a director of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and o ...

, * Frances "Frannie" Wakeman, four-time winning skipper of the Adams Cup (1935-1938) * Lorna Hibberd, five-time winner of the Adams Cup * Allegra Mertz, National Women's Sailing Champion and Adams Cup winner *

, 1996 Olympic Bronze medalist

References

External links

* {{official, http://www.americanyc.org 1883 establishments in New York (state) Sailing in New York (state) Sports clubs established in 1883 Yacht clubs in the United States Yachting in New York City