The utility and beauty of yacht clubs

June 2024

By Evan Delucia

Growing up sailing a 19’ wood Lightning out of Harbor Island, New York, I had many friends who were members of the Larchmont Yacht Club. It’s a gorgeous club, steeped in tradition, but I found it utterly intimidating. Populated by fancy people driving very expensive cars, it didn’t feel welcoming to me – it seemed like you needed a blue blazer just to go to your cabana, and I didn’t own one. So, I naturally developed a bit of an aversion to yacht clubs.

Cruising the New England coast over the last five years with my wife Leslie, from Block Island to Southeast Harbor, in Maine, completely changed my feelings about yacht clubs. We now seek out these at times iconic, but always charming and welcoming, sailing meccas for transient stops during our cruises.

Leaving our home port of Provincetown, Mass., aboard Balmoral, our Catalina 355, with friends Nancy and Craig for a summer cruise of the Maine coast, after stops in Gloucester and Isle of Shoals, we found ourselves at the Biddeford Pool Yacht Club (BPYC). My first time at a yacht club in decades.

We thought we might anchor, but the harbor is narrow and gets shallow outside of the mooring field so we called the BPYC and requested a mooring. Many, but not all, yacht clubs will rent a ball if they have the availability. BPYC came through. We were fairly new to cruising and I smiled and puffed up a bit when the launch skipper from the club called me “captain” and directed me to our ball. After tying up and enjoying a Pink Line cocktail, we dropped Mini B, our eight-foot Hypalon dink and motored the half mile to the club.

The Pink Line? Craig and I have been through several navigation courses and are well-versed in the use of paper charts. That said, the chart plotter on Balmoral and our backup iPads are loaded with Navionics. The courses on our version are illustrated by a pink line, so it seemed natural that we would call our boat rum drink at the end of the day a “Pink Line” (rum, coconut water, a spritz of soda, and lime). Note, one only earns a Pink Line if the sails have been hoisted. They don’t need to be up for long!

The clubhouse at BPYC is magical. It is small but decked out with red leather club chairs, walls adorned with trophies and flags, and the flotsam and jetsam of a junior racing program strewn about. Any sailor would feel at home here. Built in the early ’30s by five pairs of brothers, this salty building on the water had everything we needed – namely a shower and WiFi. We’d only been out for four days, but it was time for a scrub. The single shower was small, which was a good thing. When I got in and closed my eyes to shampoo, I almost keeled over, still rocking from the trip getting there. Waiting for the single shower also gave the rest of us time to catch up on email and get the latest weather reports.

Not 100 yards from the yacht club is Goldthwaite’s – a country store, but also a grill serving all sorts of delicious dishes including beautiful takeout lobster dinners. We bought some provisions, a couple of bottles of wine, picked up our lobster meals and headed back to the club for a picnic overlooking Saco Bay. The club’s charm and physical beauty, and the warm welcome by the staff, was all I needed to shed my trepidation about yacht clubs.

After dropping Craig and Nancy in Portland, Leslie and I headed east across Casco Bay with stops at Jewel Island – enchanting – and Five Islands. The Five Islands Yacht Club, a virtual entity, I think, offered several free moorings for overnight stays, though there are plastic bottles attached to the mooring where we left a donation. There was a great lobster shack at Five Islands, but for my money the real gem was the Five Islands Farm about a mile up the road. It had all the usual good farm stuff, including a nice selection of wines, but what was really special was their blueberry pie. Made with the little sort-of-sweet, sort-of-tart, Maine blueberries that we adore, Leslie and I enjoyed pie for breakfast for the better part of the next week.

Departing Five Islands and sailing through the Townsend Gut, we arrived at the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club, where Rodney came out in the launch to escort us to our mooring ball. Like many mooring fields the balls are apparently numbered at random and it took us a bit to find the right one. After buttoning up Balmoral we headed ashore for showers and laundry. Here’s where things got interesting.

With a full dining room and bar, the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club had everything we needed to settle in and do a bit of computer work. While I was off at the shower, Leslie befriended Shelly, a member of the club, and I came back to find them sipping chardonnays and laughing. I gabbed with Shelly while Leslie put in some laundry; when Leslie returned she announced that we didn’t have enough quarters to get the two loads through the dryer. No worries, we’ll get change at the bar. Surprise, it’s a club – no cash! And, it was Sunday so banks were not open. This is when Shelly sprang into action.

Shelly corralled every member who walked by begging for quarters. She was able to gather a few when one member said he would search the cushions in his car, to no avail. Finally, one of Shelly’s friends called his wife who drove over with their piggy bank and saved us from spending the night on wet sheets. That friend was a board member, and apparently he and Shelly were embarrassed that the cruising guide mentioned laundry facilities at the club, but no way to make change to pay for them. I am proud to say that our little laundry episode motivated a policy change at BHYC – we heard that upon presenting the bartender with 10 dollars for laundry, you will receive eight dollars in quarters and a healthy glass of wine.

What I can tell you now is that my younger self thought that yacht clubs were pretentious and full of folks who were at best marginally qualified to take the helm. Our cruising experience showed me what special places these clubs can be; home to warm, generous members, and highly skilled sailors who are just as ready to share a glass of wine as they are to help out with a boat project, or a little laundry issue.

Evan is professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Illinois. He and wife Leslie, chef extraordinaire, spend summers in North Eastham, Mass., and sail the New England coast from their home port of Provincetown, Mass.

The post The utility and beauty of yacht clubs appeared first on Points East Magazine.