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New York Yacht Club Then the New York Yacht Club Was Formed on July 30, 1844, Aboard the Yacht Gimcrack, Anchored Off the Battery, New York Harbor

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New York Yacht Club Then the New York Yacht Club Was Formed on July 30, 1844, Aboard the Yacht Gimcrack, Anchored Off the Battery, New York Harbor NEW YORK YACHT CLUB then The New York Yacht Club was formed on July 30, 1844, aboard the yacht Gimcrack, anchored off the Battery, New York Harbor. Nine men were present: John Cox Stevens, the owner of Gimcrack, Hamilton Wilkes, William Edgar, John C. Jay, George L. Schuyler, Louis A. Depau, George B. Rollins, James M. Waterbury and James Rogers. “On motion, it was resolved to form a yacht club, that the title of the club be the New York Yacht Club, that the gentlemen present be the original members of the club and that John Cox Stevens be the commodore. After appointing Friday 2nd August at 0900 the time for sailing on the Cruise, the Meeting Adjourned” - from the original minutes of the New York Yacht Club. “The New York Yacht Club has been an organization of remarkable achievement for all its years,” wrote Walter Cronkite, a member since 1963. “Auspiciously, it was founded on a yacht ... And barely four years after its founding, its prominence was such that the United States government asked it to design a flag that would fly only on pleasure vessels. That flag, unchanged from the original, has been the U.S. yacht ensign ever since. And a scarce seven years after its founding, the club’s burgee flew over the yacht America as it established in that famous race off Cowes the superiority of America’s yacht designers and builders.” The tradition of Corinthian competition in the United States and around the world began when John Cox Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club in 1844. In the painting to the right, Commodore Stevens welcomes Queen Victoria aboard America in 1851, after winning the “100 Guinea Cup,” later known as the America’s Cup. and now Within 50 years, membership in the New York Yacht Club stood at 1,000; by 1903, it passed the 2,000-member mark. And now, the club’s membership is at 3,200. Fifty-four percent of members are yacht-owners. The yachts range from 22 to 289 feet, and 1,116 are sailboats, 614, powerboats. Today’s members come primarily from the New York metropolitan area and New England as well as across America and around the world. They are cruising sailors, power- boaters, Corinthian racers, professional sailors, team-racers, match-racers, Olympic medalists, America’s Cup skippers and crews, and sailmakers, yacht designers and boatbuilders. They are distinguished by one thing: an abiding passion for yachting. pride of place The original clubhouse, a small Gothic building with gingerbread trim, was constructed in 1845 across the Hudson River from Manhattan in Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was on property owned by the family of John Cox Stevens, the first commodore. The estate is today the site of Stevens Institute of Technology, endowed by Edwin Stevens, who like his brother John, was a commodore of this club. Although the list of yachtsmen who have served as The three permanent clubhouses of the New York commodore of the New York Yacht Club is relatively short, Yacht Club: the first clubhouse (above), the 44th their legacies to the club and to the sport of yachting Street Clubhouse in Manhattan and the Harbour are legion. J. Pierpont Morgan (above), whose term as Court clubhouse in Newport, RI. seventeenth commodore was from 1897-1899, disrupted the 4 club’s October 1898 General Meeting with a dramatic announcement. It was his intention to purchase a two-lot site on West 44th Street and to give it to the club. It would be the location of the club’s first permanent clubhouse. Following two years of construction, the burgee was hoisted above the spectacular new building for the first time on January 20, 1901. Embodying many exceptions to the architectural rules in vogue at the end of the century, the building, designed by Whitney Warren, is particularly remarkable for its ship- at-sea echo and the rooms that house the club’s preeminent model, fine arts and library collections. The natural alliance between the New York Yacht Club and Newport, Rhode Island, began three days after the club’s founding on Friday, August 2, 1844, when a fleet of the founders’ eight yachts got underway from the Battery bound for Newport on the first summer Cruise. On Friday, June 10, 1988, 144 years later, this alliance reached a logical conclusion when 1,500 New York Yacht Club members and guests attended the commissioning of Harbour Court, the club’s first permanent waterfront facility. Standing on eight acres overlooking Brenton’s Cove, the Renaissance Norman-style mansion was completed in 1906 for the John Nicholas Brown family. John Nicholas Brown was commodore from 1952-54. Harbour Court has become the national- and international-focal point of many of yachting’s premier events. annual cruise On the day the New York Yacht Club was organized, the Cruise was born. It has long delivered on the founders’ intent: great cruising and racing in the company of friends. The imminent departure of the first Cruise was described by Philip Hone, the popular American diarist: “There is a gay, saucy-looking squadron of schooner yachts lying off the Battery which excites considerable admiration. About a dozen of these handsome little vessels, owned by gentlemen of fortune and enterprise, are preparing for a voyage to Newport, under command of that excellent fellow, John Cox Stevens as commodore ... The arrival of the squadron at Newport, will, of course, occasion a sensation among the company there ...” A summer Cruise among New York Yacht Club members has been an annual event ever since, with few exceptions. Since 1844, club members have cruised and raced in company up and down the eastern seaboard and around the world. A recent edition of the Annual Cruise celebrated the The pleasures of cruising and racing in the company of friends has been a tradition at the New York Yacht Club since 1844. Beyond the Annual Cruise, the club organizes ad-hoc cruises of Chesapeake Bay, Bahamas, Newfoundland and England. It is thought of as bringing the yacht club to the membership. 100th anniversary of the New York Yacht Club’s first Cruise to Maine, when in 1897 Commodore J. Pierpont Morgan’s 241-foot flagship Corsair II led a fleet of club vessels farther afield than it had ever sailed. In addition to the Annual Cruise, the New York Yacht Club now organizes smaller cruises. There was, for example, a Cruise-in-Company to England in 2001 for the America’s Cup Jubilee. (Also, a number of other yachts belonging to members were transported from Newport to England on a semi-submersible cargo ship to race and to take part in the festivities.) Some of these yachts are still cruising in Europe. In 2003, there was a Newfoundland Cruise. The club has cruised in the Chesapeake a few times and the Bahamas. annual regatta On July 15, 1845 the members of the New York Yacht Club met in their Hoboken, New Jersey, clubhouse for the first time. Two days later they began a tradition that would continue for well over 150 years, the club’s Annual Regatta. The nine participating yachts raced off Robbins Reef to stake boats off Bay Ridge and Stapleton, out to the The Annual Regatta has been a tradition at the Narrows to a buoy off Southwest Spit and finished off New York Yacht Club since 1845. Since 2004, the clubhouse at Hoboken. The winner was Cygnet its 150th edition, it has been a three-day event. owned by William Edgar, one of the nine founding members of the New York Yacht Club and commodore from 1855-1858. Thousands gathered to watch the race from the shores and from the steam yacht Wave. Through the years the course for the Annual Regatta varied. It was held in Glen Cove, Newport, off Oyster Bay, Buzzards Bay and western Long Island Sound. Only wars, beginning with the Civil War in 1861, and a political assassination—New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy—have prevented the Annual Regatta from being sailed. In 2004, the New York Yacht Club celebrated the 150th Annual Regatta, as a three-day event—more than 125 yachts competed. Over the years numerous artists have celebrated the tradition of the New York Yacht Club’s Annual Regatta including James Edward Buttersworth, Currier & Ives (opposite), Albert Van Beest, A. D. Blake, Nathaniel Stebbins and silversmiths of Tiffany & Co. and Black, Starr & Frost. In addition to the trophy presented to Cygnet in 1845, the club’s fine arts collection includes prints, drawings, paintings, photographs and silver of the club’s Annual Regatta over the past century and a half. race week at newport In 1998, the New York Yacht Club created a new event and a new format known as the New York Yacht Club Race Week at Newport, presented by Rolex. The biennial event, held in even-numbered years, is split between handicap racing and one-design racing, with a distance race in between. Recognizing that sailors living in the northeast have a large investment in their boats and a short season in which to use them, the Race Week format maximizes competitive options by allowing boat owners to compete in handicap, one- design or a distance race. Or in all three events. Handicap racing at the NYYC dates back as far as 1845—the New York Yacht Club’s second year of existence. The club conducted its first distance race on the ocean in 1858. The origin of one-design racing at the New York Yacht Club can be traced to 1900.
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