The New Orleans Yacht Club (NOYC) was founded in June 1949 and is dedicated to further the sport of

yacht racing Yacht racing is a sailing sport involving sailing yachts and larger sailboats, as distinguished from dinghy racing, which involves open boats. It is composed of multiple yachts, in direct competition, racing around a course marked by buoys or ...

, marine safety and seamanship. The club is located at West End's Municipal Yacht Harbor on the south shore of

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from wes ...

and is a member of the

Gulf Yachting Association The Gulf Yachting Association (GYA) formed in 1901, is a non-profit organization consisting of 39 member and affiliate yacht club's from Houston, TX to Sarasota, FL along the Gulf of Mexico in the United States. Organized specifically to further t ...

since 1953. Since its founding, New Orleans Yacht Club has been home to many regional and national regattas as well as sailing champions. The club annually hosts or co-hosts over 30

regattas Boat racing is a sport in which boats, or other types of watercraft, race on water. Boat racing powered by oars is recorded as having occurred in ancient Egypt, and it is likely that people have engaged in races involving boats and other water ...

on the lake and its membership is actively involved in many regional and national regattas, including hosting Mardi Gras Race Week and the Bastille Day Regatta. The club holds one of the largest Wednesday Night Racing regatta series in the United States with on average 50 boats participating weekly throughout

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

and has an active junior sailing program.

Sailing

New Orleans Yacht Club is an extremely active sailing club and is the organizing body for Mardi Gras Race Week, the Bastille Day Regatta and Wednesday Night Racing on Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans Yacht Club also is host to an active

Viper 640 The Viper 640 is an American trailerable sailboat, that was designed by Brian Bennett for racing and first built in 1996. The Viper 640 is an accepted World Sailing class boat and the official one-design boat of the Gulf Yachting Associatio ...

, Easterly 30,

Optimist (dinghy) The Optimist is a small, single-handed sailing dinghy intended for use by young people up to the age of 15. The Optimist is one of the two most popular sailing dinghies in the world, with over 150,000 boats officially registered with the c ...

, S2, 420, and Sunfish fleet as well as multiple Handicap and Offshore Racing Fleets and several high school sailing programs.

Hurricane Katrina

After Hurricane Katrina made landfall in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, the membership of the

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 mar ...

worked together under generator power to get the club reopened within sixty days of the storm. New Orleans Yacht Club was the only organization or business operating on the lakefront of New Orleans for three months. Members were actively involved in rescuing stranded individuals off of rooftops utilizing their boating skills and knowledge of the surrounding neighborhoods with much of this documented during this time on the

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

Gulfsails Gulfsails is the name of a blog, written by Troy Gilbert, that documented the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans following that disaster. In the early aftermath of the hurricane and the 2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans, it was one ...

References

External links

NOYC.org - the official website of the New Orleans Yacht ClubMardi Gras Race WeekGulf Coast Sailing NewsNew Orleans Municipal Harbor
{{Coordinate , NS=30.01310 , EW=-90.07085 , type , elevation=0 , region= Organizations based in Louisiana Sailing in New Orleans Yacht clubs in the United States 1949 establishments in Louisiana