History

A BRIEF 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 found at the Westhampton
Public Library, and are also available at the Shinnecock Yacht Club.)

Dr. George Milvern Eddy
William M. Lawrence
Henry B. Howell
John Gilsey
Morgan J. O’Brien
Charles deHart Brower
Thomas A. Howell
William A. Keys, Jr.
Baily Brower
F. Dayton Canfield
Henry Schroeder
Sifrein F. Maury
Edwin Shuttleworth III
Howell Post Young
Gerard McAllister
T. Decker Orr
Robert B. Baird
Chester Billings, Jr.
George W. Fennell
William E. Hines
Ambrose A. Carr, Jr.
William L. Russell
Frederick E. Schaefer
George W. Carmany III
John M. Sartorius, Jr.
C. James McDermott III
J. Richard Prior
Richard D. Buckley
James E. Schelter
Robert D. Wilson, Jr.
Thomas Cauchois
Michael H. Sargent
David J. Kepner
John Morgan