Yale Corinthian Yacht Club
Encyclopedia
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| Founded | 1881 |
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| Clubhouse | 179 Clark Avenue, Branford Branford, Connecticut -Landmarks and attractions:Branford has six historic districts that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places . These include buildings in Federal, Arts and Crafts, and Queen Anne styles of architecture... , Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately... 06405 |
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| Commodore | Andrew Kurzrok |
| One-Design One-design One-Design is a racing method where all vehicles or boats have identical or very similar designs or models. It is also known as Spec series. It is heavily used in sailboat racing. All competitors in a race are then judged based on a single start time... fleets |
420 420 (dinghy) The International 420 Class Dinghy is a double-handed monohull planing dinghy with centreboard, bermuda rig and centre sheeting. The name describes the overall length of the boat in centimetres . The hull is fibreglass with internal buoyancy tanks. The 420 is equipped with spinnaker and optional... (20) Flying Junior Flying Junior thumb|Coen Gulcher helming one of the first Flying Juniors The International Flying Junior or FJ is a sailing dinghy which was originally designed in 1955 in the Netherlands by renowned boat designer Van Essen and Olympic sailor Conrad Gülcher. The FJ was built to serve as a training boat for the... (12) Laser Laser (dinghy) The International Laser Class sailboat, also called Laser Standard and the Laser One is a popular one-design class of small sailing dinghy. According the Laser Class Rules the boat may be sailed by either one or two people, though it is rarely sailed by two. The design, by Bruce Kirby, emphasizes... (4) |
| Website | www.yale.edu/ycyc |
Yale Corinthian Yacht Club is the home yacht club
Yacht club
A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to sailing and yachting.-Description:Yacht Clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there are some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations...
for the Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
Coed and Women's Sailing Teams. It is located at 179 Clark Avenue in Branford, Connecticut
Branford, Connecticut
-Landmarks and attractions:Branford has six historic districts that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places . These include buildings in Federal, Arts and Crafts, and Queen Anne styles of architecture...
. Founded in 1881, it is the oldest collegiate sailing club in the world.
It is generally abbreviated as "YCYC" and is affectionately pronounced "yic-yic."
Fleet
YCYC is home to the fleet of the Yale University Sailing Team's dinghies. These include 20 new VanguardVanguard Sailboats
Vanguard Sailboats was founded in 1967 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, USA by Peter and Olaf Harken. The brothers started to gain attention after their sailing hardware was used on boats that won Olympic gold in 1968 and after Vanguard supplied the Finn class for several countries in the 1976 Olympics...
Club 420s
420 (dinghy)
The International 420 Class Dinghy is a double-handed monohull planing dinghy with centreboard, bermuda rig and centre sheeting. The name describes the overall length of the boat in centimetres . The hull is fibreglass with internal buoyancy tanks. The 420 is equipped with spinnaker and optional...
, 12 Vanguard Flying Junior
Flying Junior
thumb|Coen Gulcher helming one of the first Flying Juniors The International Flying Junior or FJ is a sailing dinghy which was originally designed in 1955 in the Netherlands by renowned boat designer Van Essen and Olympic sailor Conrad Gülcher. The FJ was built to serve as a training boat for the...
s (FJs), and 4 Vanguard Lasers
Laser (dinghy)
The International Laser Class sailboat, also called Laser Standard and the Laser One is a popular one-design class of small sailing dinghy. According the Laser Class Rules the boat may be sailed by either one or two people, though it is rarely sailed by two. The design, by Bruce Kirby, emphasizes...
.
The Fifties
The beginning of the fifties found the YCYC with four wooden Dyer dinghies, purchased I know not when. Being wooden, lapstrake boats, they were sturdy, but unable to withstand the neglect inherent in ownership by a rather nomadic, casual student sailing club. During my prep school days I had enjoyed considerable summer success sailing scows in Wisconsin, and so when I appeared on the New Haven scene in September 1949, I immediately joined the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, hoping to be able to represent the University in sailing competition. In the years immediately prior to 1949, the YCYC had done extremely well in InterCollegiate competition, and I was eager to join the team. Easily done, as it turned out, because the sailing stars, especially Dick Carter, had graduated, and after their exodus I was one of the few YCYC members that had any racing experience whatsoever. As I recall, David Toy, a California Snipe sailor and I, both Class of '53, were about the only YCYC members who had much of any racing experience as skippers. And both David and I, sloop racers, learned quickly that sailing without a jib was very, very different than sailing a balanced boat. We were rotten, just rotten.The four Dyers were kept in Milford, upside down on the beach, with the sails and other paraphernalia in a shed at the edge of the Milford Yacht Club property. Since the YCYC had no University support, the operation was shoestring, to say the least. The Dyers were intended only for practice, and all competitions were staged at the magnificent facilities of Harvard/MIT (shared on the Charles River), Brown, the Coast Guard Academy, Kings Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, the latter a really significant drive pre-Interstate system.
Fiberglass was brand new, then, and MIT had designed in fiberglass a new "Tech Dinghy", built by the Beetle Boat Company of New Bedford to withstand the rigors of college neglect, rather than built for speed. When I became Commodore in my sophomore year, I embarked on a program to raise money to replace our four tired wooden Dyers. Each hull cost $569.00, delivered, sans sails (down from a list of $660.00 - quantity discount). Sails were ordered out of the new synthetic material called Orlon, 3 1/2 oz, for $72.00 each, including racing numbers, battens and bag from Ratsey & Lapthorn of City Island, NYC.
I did not turn out to be a very effective fund raiser, but I managed to amass funds for one boat, prevail on Harry Anderson to donate the second and, con my Dad to (unconsciously) donate the other two. In the spring of 1953, with our four new boats, we moved from the kind hospitality of the Milford Yacht Club to the Branford Yacht Club facilities, an easier venue to get to from campus. As a thank you to Milford, we gave the tired Dyers to Milford for use as rowing tenders for their members.
H. Coleman Norris, Yale '53 (JE)
Renovations
With additional funding from an anonymous donor, the yacht club underwent a major renovation in the spring of 2002 that was completed in the fall of that year.Yale University Sailing Team
The Yale Sailing Team participates in the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association.Notable Alumni
- Steve Benjamin
- JJ Fetter Isler
- Dave Perry
- Stan Honey
- Jonathan McKee
- Dick Carter
- Harry Anderson, Jr.
- Peter Isler