HISTORY & COMMODORES
| HISTORY & COMMODORES |
| A HISTORY OF THE SHINNECOCK YACHT CLUB The Shinnecock Yacht Club was organized on April 20, 1887 by a group of summer residents whose mission was to promote sailboat racing in Shinnecock Bay in general, and in the waters of Weesuck Bay and Tiana Bay in particular. Then known as the Shinnecock Bay Yacht Club, its first race was held on July 4, 1888, from a dock on Philips Point in East Quogue. A photograph from that day can be found on the walls of the current yacht club, showing fifteen boats underway, or soon to be. The name was shortened to the Shinnecock Yacht Club in 1901, and after using a series of shacks, shooting boxes and commodore’s flagships as headquarters, an agreement was reached with the Trustees of the Town of Southampton to establish a club house at the east end of Niamogue Lane in Quogue. There a building was erected (with a contract price of $1,053) in 1904. Despite a number of ruinous storms which required the rebuilding of the clubhouse, most notably the Hurricane of 1938, the structure standing at that location today is very similar to the original. After a number of classes of sailboats were introduced and raced by the members, with varying degrees of success, a fleet of one-design boats was purchased in 1908. These boats, designed and built by Benjamin Hallock of East Moriches, were the first of the fabled SS Class. This class was so successful that they were the boat of choice for racing, not only at Shinnecock Yacht Club, but at yacht clubs all along the south shore of Long Island. This continued until the late 1950’s, when the Sailfish and Sunfish were introduced. In the mid 1970’s the Shinnecock Yacht Club began sailing and racing Celebrity Sloops. Today the yacht club has an active senior fleet of Celebrity’s racing every Saturday in the summer months on Tiana Bay, and also has a junior fleet of Opti Prams and JY 15’s. The Shinnecock Yacht Club is proud of its firm place in the history of boating on Shinnecock Bay. The Yacht Club has been instrumental in establishing and continuing the fine traditions of one design sail boat racing, not only on the south shore of Long Island, but nationally as well. We celebrated our first century in 1987, and are well on our way to a second century of promoting boating on Shinnecock Bay, which continues to be our mission, just as it was at that first regatta on Phillips Point many years ago. (For a complete history of the Shinnecock Yacht Club and boating on Shinnecock Bay, please find and read “Shinnecock Sails – Tales of the Western Shinnecock Bay and The 100 Years of the Shinnecock Yacht Club”, written by George Carmany, III. Copies can be e also available at the Shinnecock Yacht Club. PAST COMMODORES Elected Dr. George Milvern Eddy 1887 William M. Lawrence 1888 Henry B. Howell 1896 John Gilsey 1899 Morgan J. O’Brien 1901 Charles deHart Brower 1902 Thomas A. Howell 1905 William A. Keys, Jr. 1912 Baily Brower 1930 F. Dayton Canfield 1931 Henry Schroeder 1938 Sifrein F. Maury 1952 Edwin Shuttleworth III 1960 Howell Post Young 1962 Gerard McAllister 1964 T. Decker Orr 1966 Robert B. Baird 1968 Chester Billings, Jr. 1970 George W. Fennell 1972 William E. Hines 1974 Ambrose A. Carr, Jr. 1976 William L. Russell 1978 Frederick E. Schaefer 1980 George W. Carmany III 1983 John M. Sartorius, Jr. 1987 C. James McDermott III 1989 J. Richard Prior 1991 Richard D. Buckley 1993 James E. Schelter 1995 Robert D. Wilson, Jr. 1997 Thomas Cauchois 1999 Michael H. Sargent 2001 David J. Kepner 2003 John Morgan 2005 Ralph Worthington, IV 2007 Allison Conway Carey 2008 |
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