KYLE ARMSTRONG 1 STORY OF BUCKEYE LAKE YACHT CLUB A NARRATIVE OF THE ORIGIN, PROGRESS AND ACCOMPILISHMENTS OF SUCH ORGANIZATION THROUGH ITS FIRST HALF-CENTURY WITH APPENDIXES KYLE ARMSTRONG 2 TO THE HEARTY MARINERS, DEAD AND LIVING, WHO HAVE MADE THIS CLUB BY THEIR GENEROUS GIVING 3 BACKGROUND COMPILATION of this story has been a labor of love--love of the subject. Without such ardent affection, it might have been found too discouraging to continue through to its finish. Unfortunately, there have been relatively long periods in the life of Buckeye Lake Yacht Club for which no records, at all have been found available. It appears that, for some reasons or others or none, at least part of them may have been lost or possibly even destroyed. Furthermore, much available information in black and white has been found sketchy or chronologically uncertain, requiring considerable research, study and time in its digestion and assimilation. While the writer has been acquainted with the Club since its fourteenth year, he himself has been unable accurately to recall dates and details of many of its important happenings not of record in his time. Fortunately, however, records found most complete, and evidently authentic, deal with the Club's initial, earlier and more formative years. And as with most animate bodies, its greatest progress probably did occur preceding its maturity. Filling in some of the apparent voids has been made possible through recollections and generous cooperation of many still active members of the Club, especially commodores no longer with portfolios. With such background, and within his limited time and capacity, the writer has endeavored to present as much true history of the Club as possible. But, with such insurmountable shortcomings, his effort has produced rather a "story" of the more important phases of the Club's life instead of a fully complete "history" of the organization. Had this writing included all available interesting anecdotes about the subject and its members, it might have competed in volume with Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf ("The 4 Harvard Classic”). So, generally, to keep within readable brevity, only those appearing to bear on the Club’s progress and accomplishments have been included. Watkins Island K.A. Buckeye Lake, Ohio April 24, 1956 BACKGROUND OF REPRINT Comm. Frank H. Foster III, Historian As we approach the 100th anniversary of the founding of BLYC, it seemed appropriate to reprint the Story of Buckeye Lake Yacht Club written by Kyle Armstrong to describe the first 50 years. From the appearance of an original copy, he apparently self published this book and it has been out of print ever since he distributed it. At least I have never heard of a source for it. Fortunately for us, it was published without a copyright notice at a time when that resulted in loss of any copyright rights. So we are free to copy it. I suspect that he wanted it that way. At one time, I called his daughter and asked her if any copies or any of his source materials still existed. She said she knew of nothing. The original that I have was autographed by the author and I have included a scan of it. Comm. Kyle Armstrong was BLYC Commodore in 1947. I was once told that he used to row a small boat around Buckeye Lake, take depth soundings with a weight on a rope and record them. From that he made a chart of the lake, which I believe has been reprinted ever since. He also wrote An Appreciation of Buckeye Lake, a history of the lake and its surroundings. I have several copies of it and they are available for purchase from the ladies auxiliary showcase. Except for a few graphics scans, this copy was made by my secretary, Debbie Bright, who scanned the original and converted it to text using optical character recognition software so that it would be darker and more readable and could be printed in other formats. The original was printed on 6½ x 9½” paper but this is on 8½ x11” paper for ease of computer printing. I tried to maintain the original pagination so the table of contents would still work. It is close but may be a few words off here and there. The original has typographical and/or spelling errors which, for the most part, I retained. There may be others introduced by the OCR operation. If you see major errors, you can email a description of them to me at [email protected]. Thanks to Comm. Armstrong, the eternal BLYC historian, this history was preserved. Comm. Frank H. Foster III April 14, 2005 5 CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ..................................................................................................... 2 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................. 3 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 7 A WHIMSICAL VENTURE ............................................................................... 8 FILLING AWAY ............................................................................................... 16 HOME PORT ..................................................................................................... 25 OVERHAUL ...................................................................................................... 35 BELOW THE MASTHEAD ............................................................................. 44 BEYOND THE BREAKERS ............................................................................ 51 NEW HORIZONS ............................................................................................. 58 BLUE WATERS ................................................................................................ 65 QUARTERS ………………..……………...…………..……………………...73 TRIMMING SHIP ............................................................................................. 81 UNDER FULL SAIL ......................................................................................... 89 FOUL WEATHER ............................................................................................. 95 FAIR WEATHER ............................................................................................ 100 VARIABLE WINDS ....................................................................................... 112 SMOOTH SAILING ........................................................................................ 121 IN UPPER LATITUDES ................................................................................. 131 FARTHER AND WIDER ................................................................................ 143 BEYOND THE HORIZON ............................................................................. 160 APPENDIX A--Officers and Governors ............................................................ 161 APPENDIX B--Trustees ..................................................................................... 170 6 7 INTRODUCTION THE STORY OF BUCKEYE LAKE YACHT CLUB is linked inseparably with that of the waters whose name it bears. Obviously, without such lake there never could have been this club. On the other hand, had it not been .for the Club the Lake might never have become what it is today. Together the Club and the Lake, as such, came into being. Together they have endured and achieved their present states of maturity. Of the many resident sportsmen's organizations attending conversion of the old, uncouth, stump-filled Licking (Summit) Reservoir into Buckeye Lake, Buckeye Lake Yacht Club alone has survived the succeeding half-century. Comparing them with what they are now, both Lake and Club were almost unbelievably different at their beginnings. 8 A WHIMSICAL VENTURE IT WAS EARLY MORNING, late in April of 1906. The gray-bearded sages of Millersport, as usual on weekdays, were up at dawn--early birds getting worms. Also as usual, they were assembled on the stoop at the general store- postoffice, on the bank of the Ohio and Erie Canal, when the proprietor came open up. Here these disciples of Izaak Walton regularly gathered to get the latest weather reports, and to lay in fresh supplies of J-T or Star plug--basic ingredient for making baits enticingly juicy and sweet--before poling and sculling their punts through the canal to favorite fishing haunts among stumps and weeds of the reservoir. On this particular morning their sporting ardor was dampened and cooled, temporarily, by a light yet penetrating cold drizzle. But, it being April, the sun could blaze forth almost any minute. So, meanwhile, they tarried to enjoy the storekeeper’s hospitality. Within reach of the cracker-barrel, they deposited themselves around the potbellied cannonball stove which soon drew from their jackets an atmosphere permeating vapor of fishy odor. There, sitting on and leaning against counters, they spat at the sawdust-box, reminisced, respun well worn yarns, and gummed crackers. The storekeeper, in his capacity as postmaster, finally giving up hope, left his openly filching guests to meet the T. & O. C. train and pick up mail and newspapers. One of these sages, a nonagenarian, recollected canal and reservoir during construction. All had seen the rise and decline of barge traffic past this very spot, and most, in one way or another, had participated in it. But, while lock tenders, toll collectors and maintenance crews still were on the canal's payroll, it had been nearly ten years since a vessel had passed through or moored at Millersport. 9 Now, however, revival of canal-boating hopefully seemed assured. Such wishful thinking was founded on faith