shelter island yacht club junior sailing

Shelter Island Yacht Club

Stories from the Shelter Island Yacht Club

P.O. Box 546 12 Chequit Avenue Shelter Island Heights., NY 11965

(631) 749.0888

Website: www.siyc.com

Founded in 1886, The Shelter Island Yacht Club is among the dozen oldest yacht clubs in the United States. Located in Dering Harboron at the far eastern end of Long Island, New York, on Shelter Island, the club boasts a vibrant and active junior sailing program as well as one of the largest Herreshoff H12-½ and Etchells fleets in the country.

SHELTER ISLAND YACHT CLUB BECOMES NSHOF FOUNDING MEMBER

From the commodore:.

"The Shelter Island Yacht Club is very proud and excited to become a Founding Member of the National Sailing Hall of Fame. We wholeheartedly support the NSHOF's efforts to preserve America’s Corinthian traditions of yachting; to uphold the spirit of sailing; and to honor those who have made outstanding contributions to the sailing world. The NSHOF’s mission is our mission. Becoming a Founding Member of the NSHOF is a perfect way for us to celebrate our 125th year."

Stephen C. Schram, Commodore

A very detailed and colorful Centennial history of the Shelter Island Yacht Club by Steward Herman is available for reading by visiting:

http://www.shelter-island.org/SIYC/

BACK TO YACHT CLUB STORIES PAGE

SHELTER ISLAND NEW HORIZONS PROGRAM

Now in its second year, Shelter Island New Horizons is a joint program between Hudson River Community Sailing and Shelter Island Yacht Club.

Overview and Outcomes

Students from HRCS’s flagship youth development program Sail Academy get a break from the city, participate in Shelter Island Yacht Club’s Junior Sailing Program, and stay with host families on the unique Island.

The program goal is to give HRCS students the opportunity to enjoy Shelter Island, build sailing and maritime career skills, and broaden their horizons and networks. Through an exchange, the program also provides Shelter Island youth with the opportunity to sail in NYC with HRCS.

HRCS is a nonprofit organization founded in 2008 with a dual mission: to use sailing as a platform for developing leadership and academic success in New York City public school students and to provide maritime education and recreation to the city at large. Sail Academy serves 200 students from 14 schools, providing social-emotional learning, STEM enrichment, and college and career access through sailing and boatbuilding.

About Shelter Island Yacht Club

Shelter Island Yacht Club, established in 1886, promotes recreational sailing, one design and PHRF racing, powerboating, cruising, and fostering a love of sailing through a very active Junior Sailing Program. The SIYC Junior Sailing Program is designed to teach children and teens the fundamentals of sailing and racing skills along with the importance of teamwork and ethical competitive behavior. Junior sailors enjoy fun on the water and the camaraderie of fellow sailors, and compete at local, regional, and national regattas.

Support the program by donating or spreading the word!

• Yacht Clubs

Shelter Island Yacht Club

P.O. Box 546

12 Chequit Avenue

Shelter Island Heights , NY 11965

(631) 749-0888

Founded in 1886, The Shelter Island Yacht Club is among the dozen oldest yacht clubs in the United States. Located in Dering Harboron at the far eastern end of Long Island, New York, on Shelter Island, the club boasts a vibrant and active junior sailing program as well as one of the largest Herreshoff H12-½ and Etchells fleets in the country.

From the Commodore:

“The Shelter Island Yacht Club is very proud and excited to become a Founding Member of the National Sailing Hall of Fame. We wholeheartedly support the NSHOF’s efforts to preserve America’s Corinthian traditions of yachting; to uphold the spirit of sailing; and to honor those who have made outstanding contributions to the sailing world. The NSHOF’s mission is our mission. Becoming a Founding Member of the NSHOF is a perfect way for us to celebrate our 125th year.”

Stephen C. Schram, Commodore

Quick Links

Getting Here

The Sailing Museum & Hall of Fame

365 Thames Street

Newport, RI 02840

401.324.5761

[email protected]

• Racing Season

Shelter Island C420 and Laser Regatta

It’s what sailors have been training for. The Shelter Island Yacht Club Open C420 and Laser Invitational on July 21, one of the last regattas of the season for sailors to qualify for JSA Champs.

The regatta turned out to be a no-wind day. Windspeed averaged at two miles per hour, blowing from southwest with gusts up to 12 mph. Compared with previous years, this windspeed seems a lower average.

Race committee ran two races. In the C420 fleet, skippers Gideon Burnes Heath from Orient Yacht Club and Oscar Champigneulle from SIYC tied for first place, and Bridget Campbell from Larchmont Yacht Club won second.

In the Laser Standard fleet, Richard O’Leary from American Yacht Club won first place, Henri Champigneulle from SIYC won second and Hunter Stump from Southampton Yacht Club won third.

Finally, in the Laser Radial fleet, Nicholas Chisari from Sea Cliff Yacht Club won first place, Lindsay Powers from AYC won second and William O’Leary from AYC won third.

See full results here .

Related posts:

• Previous Learning Safety at Sea
• Milford Yacht Club Green Fleet Next

JUNIOR SAILING ASSOCIATION OF LONG ISLAND SOUND, INC.

Founded in 1924, the JSA is an independent, non-profit corporation that is tax-exempt under Section 501 (c) (3) of the US Internal Revenue Code, and also in the State of New York.

QUICK LINKS

• Terms of use
• Training for Sailors
• TIDE – WEATHER LINKS
• INSTRUCTORS
• Program Resources
• JSA Member Classifieds
• REGATTA MANAGEMENT
• Copyright © 2020 JSA of LIS

Silver Gate Yacht Club Junior Sailing 2091 Shelter Island Dr, San Diego, CA 92106 Tel. (619) 222-1214 Email: [email protected]

• Around the Island
• Classifieds

Explore Our Site

• Write the Editor
• Legal / Public Notice Portal
• Send Us a Tip

• Riverhead News Review
• The Suffolk Times
• Northforker Vacation Guide
• Southforker

Explore northforker

Newsletter Sign Up

Women commodores make history at area yacht clubs: no longer just an old boys network.

By Nicholas Grasso

• Share on Facebook Facebook Created with Sketch.
• Share on Twitter Twitter Created with Sketch.

Sailing is typically regarded as a male-dominated pursuit, from professional race teams to boards of directors across organizations. But it appears Shelter Island and the North Fork are bucking this trend, as women currently serve as commodores at four of the five yacht clubs in the area.

Lisa Reich of the Shelter Island Yacht Club, Alyssa Constant of the Orient Yacht Club, and Ellen Talbot of the Old Cove Yacht Club, have all been commodores for the past two years, while Mary Kalich of the Mattituck Yacht Club has held the title the past eight.

“It is unique to be a female commodore,” Ms. Reich said. “I’m only the second [in Shelter Island] since 1886.”

All four women say their boards of trustees and officers, which typically count 14 members, are split fairly equally between men and women, either 50% female or close to it.

For Ms. Reich, gender is typically not a paramount concern with the Shelter Island club’s community or racing efforts. She and her fellow commodores said appealing to as many people in the community as possible is more pressing than recruiting any particular demographic.

However, Ms. Reich noted that Shelter Island currently hosts three all-women regattas throughout the season and has offered all-women and all-girls educational sailing clinics in the past.

“There are points where, because it is a male-dominated sport, like most sports, you have to do that little extra to make sure women are taken care of and given opportunities to feel welcome and secure,” Ms. Reich explained. “It can be a really intense sport and it can be intimidating, I think, at times for some. So, by offering these special clinics and races and things that feel like a safer environment, especially for newer sailors, I think that’s a way to keep women in the sport.”

The all-female regattas hosted by the club go beyond welcoming and encouraging the sailors by bolstering the female presence on the sidelines.

“With some of these women’s regattas, we’re also really proud that we’re able to offer an all-women’s race committee,” Ms. Reich said. “To have it run by women, a course set by women, judged by women, that’s kind of unique. It becomes a safe spot, especially for newer and younger women and girls to see that.”

The Shelter Island Yacht Club commodore also noted that Olympic sailor Amanda Clark, who competed in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, is a club member who has hosted junior sailing clinics in previous seasons.

While Ms. Clark is an inspirational figure, other community figures can ignite a fire inside the next young person in need of guidance.

For Ms. Reich, that was her mother-in-law Olive Reich. Although her father-in-law was a commodore of the Shelter Island Yacht Club, her mother-in-law was the one who knew how to sail and pushed the family into what has become a multi-generational activity.

“There are people that come before us that really mold us and guide us,” Ms. Reich said. “And next thing you know, you’re the commodore.”

Greg Young is the current commodore of the Southold Yacht Club, but before he reached that rank, multiple women had held the seat in recent years. But this trend is unheard of in other locales. Despite the female presence on yacht clubs’ boards, this current women batch of commodores is a historical anomaly.

Commodores can also come from wildly different backgrounds that prove useful to any organization. Such was the case of Ms. Constant, a Dallas native who may not yet be an expert sailor, but her love of sailing and the organization led her to use her finance background and volunteer for the role of treasurer of the Orient Yacht Club.

“I would say I did a lot of change as treasurer more than anything,” said Ms. Constant, the third female commodore in the club’s history. “I brought things into the 21st century from an accounting and finance perspective. As I’ve been on the board, each year we’ve gotten more and more sophisticated in our operations.”

Drawing on the experience they acquire along each rung of the ladder, commodores typically dip their toes in all operations to keep their nonprofits running successfully. While the phrase “yacht club” may ring as socially elite and sequestered from ordinary folks, they are in fact family- and youth-oriented community centers. In addition to organizing clinics to teach children and adults how to sail, commodores help develop activities for landlubbers, to foster community and have fun, such as tie-dye craft events for the kids, bingo nights and adult social events.

The Shelter Island and North Fork yacht clubs are part of the Peconic Gardiners Junior Sailing Association, which oversees the coed racing circuit across various clubs each season.

The makeup of boys and girls who participate in a yacht club’s junior sailing program varies. Some commodores note an approximate 50-50 split, while Ms. Talbot of the Old Cove club said 61% of her junior racers are boys and 39% are girls.

According to PGJSA secretary Bill Lehnert, boys make up roughly two-thirds of junior sailors across the PGJSA, which also includes four yacht clubs on the South Fork.

If these young female racers continue to participate in the sport in college, there could be more opportunities available to sail, since many colleges offer all-women sailing teams in addition to coed teams.

“That’s how it is at all the PGJSA, it’s an all coed sport,” PGJSA secretary Bill Lehnert said. “And it’s one of the few sports in my opinion that size does not win, smarts wins, tactics.”

Related Content

Shelter island water committee discusses more home testing.

Following the testing of water potability in Center homes, residents in areas of the Near Shore and Peninsula Overlay...

Fastballs, curveballs, sliders and … a pig? — The Shelter Island Reporter goes to Spring Training

Since the end of the 20th century, my husband and I have spent time every winter in Dunedin, Fla,...

Emergency pauses Shelter Island pickleball

It was a lovely, gray, overcast St. Patrick’s Day morning when the Shelter Island Pickleball Gang noticed a peculiar...

Shelter Island School Superintendent: State aid hike likely

Optimistically predicting the chances of a restoration in state aid to the Shelter Island School District, Superintendent Brian Doelger,...

Shelter Islander completes his 20th marathon in Tokyo: Adam Bundy chasing his dream in Japan

Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo. In the world of marathon running, these prestigious races are known...

Joanne Sherman’s Column: It’s in the book

Our library has asked people to visit the downstairs book sale room in preparation for new construction. All those...

Closed for the Winter Season | Donate to the Museum

The H12 Fleet of Shelter Island Yacht Club

HERRESHOFF STORIES

From WIndCheck Magazine

Written by By Whitney and Ted McCarthy

This is part of our ongoing series with our Jubilee Media Partner, WindCheck Magazine and originally appeared in the April 2021 issue.

By Whitney and Ted McCarthy

 The HMCo. assigned sequential hull numbers to most boats that it built, and the first 12 1/2 hull number was 744. Numbers referenced in this article refer to sail numbers unless noted as hull numbers.

On any Saturday in summer at the Shelter Island Yacht Club (SIYC) in Shelter Island, New York, you can see over twenty Herreshoff 12s set off for a day of racing. Sailors begin gathering around 12:30pm, catching up and discussing the day’s conditions before heading into the harbor where more than 50 H12s are moored. After rigging up, the boats sail past SIYC members having lunch on the deck out to the racecourse for a 2pm start. Races may be conventional buoy courses sailed across the ferry channel in Pipes Cove, or what is locally known as a Channel Race with longer legs using government marks for a test of wind, tide and local shoreline knowledge. Regardless of the course, the final race heads back to SIYC for a finish off the club pier and racers gather at the club to toast and recap the day’s sailing.

These are just a few of more than 50 H12s sailing in the waters of Shelter Island, New York.   © Will Ricketson

The Fiske family were the first owners of an H12 on Shelter Island.  Peggy  was one of the first 20 boats built at the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol, Rhode Island, and sold for $420 in 1914. After being sailed by the family for many years on Cape Cod and being renamed  Little Kittie , the boat was sold a few times but was brought back into the family and to Shelter Island by Andrew Fiske in 1952. Andrew was the 12th Lord of Sylvestor Manor, which was originally a provisioning plantation established in 1651 for the Barbadian sugar trade and is now operated as an Educational Farm. He owned several wooden boats, including  Little Kittie  (hull 746, sail #14) which is named for his sister. Andrew Fiske is remembered by current SIYC fleet members for racing in a jacket and tie with his wife Alice who wore a bonnet and gloves.  Little Kittie  is now owned and maintained by the Sylvestor Manor Educational Farm and can be seen out on Shelter Island Sound being sailed by farm employees or volunteers.

The North Ferry crosses a pair of port-tackers.   © Will Ricketson

The fleet began its racing history when Sam Hird sailed his boat  Poppy  (#88) from Old Lyme, Connecticut across the Long Island Sound to Shelter Island in June of 1974. Hird became the first H12 Fleet Captain and within a few years there were ten wood and fiberglass boats racing at SIYC. Early racers included Hird, Walter Brigham, Steve Corkery, Andrew Fiske, Dan Reich (former Fleet Captain), and Wallace Tiernan. Toots Clark sailed  Little Kittie  when Andrew Fiske retired from racing. Clark recruited Bruce Brewer, the current SIYC Commodore, as his crew and thus began the Brewer family interest in the H12. Bruce has been Fleet Captain and with his wife Susan sails  Spray  (#816) every week and are former club champions. Chuck and Carol Tiernan began racing together in 1981 and continue to sail together in their boat  Kona  (#205), originally owned by Wallace Tiernan and one of the first ten boats in the early days of the fleet.

Toots’ son Dennis Clark was recently Fleet Captain and races with his wife Ellen. Their first boat,  Thistle  (#101), was wood and they now race  Lulu Belle  (#256) in which they have been fleet champions. The Clark family tradition of competitive racing has continued with Dennis & Ellen’s daughter Amanda, who first sailed in  Thistle  and went on to become a two-time U.S. Olympian as skipper in the Women’s 470 Class. This past summer, Amanda frequently led the Race Committee for the club’s Saturday races and continued the family tradition by sailing with her young daughter, Margaret, in the H12 Ladies’ Races.

Shelter Island has a rich history of wooden boats – one reason there were so many competitive wooden H12s was the skill of Walter Brigham, island builder and craftsman. Brigham was a competitive sailor whose intimate knowledge of local waters made him a legend when he raced. Diana Lawrence, current owner of  Blackjack  (#272), recalled that Brigham carved a repair for her boat from an oak stump found at the town dump. Richard Smith’s wood boat arrived on the island in need of much repair work. Brigham inspected the boat, poking the hull with his penknife, and then agreed to take Smith on as his assistant. The two worked on the boat for two years before launching the boat, named  Kindling , and there have been no problems since.

There’s always a strong turnout for the SIYC Ladies Race.   Photo courtesy of Shelter Island Yacht Club

The SIYC fleet also has a fiberglass boat with historical significance. In 1973, Bill Harding designed a fiberglass reproduction of the H12 called the Doughdish. The design of the molds used three original wood hulls for guidance. Harding’s goal was to create a boat with similar sailing performance to the original wood boats so they could race together competitively. Harry and Peg Diorio own and race #71, Harding’s own boat, one of the first fiberglass boats made by builder Edey & Duff.

While some of the boats in the SIYC fleet have historical significance, one has a movie credit to its name. Mary Walker purchased her boat,  Queen Mary  (#164), from longtime racer Wally Carrucci. Though not recognizable with its current blue hull, the boat was featured in the movie  Jaws  in its original red hull.

During the summer of 2020, H12 sailing at SIYC was a particular respite from the pandemic – the club saw more participation than ever in events offered for the H12 fleet. Saturday races ran from June through the Halloween Howl on October 17. Participation peaked on Saturday August 22 with 28 H12s on the line. The club also ran Ladies Races where mother-daughter teams and friends enjoyed monthly races. Dona Bergin, coordinator of the events, reports that 10-15 boats participated in each of the Ladies events. Dona has been sailing almost every day during the past year and even enjoyed a day of sailing this winter in the snow.

The SIYC H12 fleet is represented by all ages and is welcoming to all sailors interested in sailing the lovely 12 ½-footer (LWL) designed by Nathanael G. Herreshoff. This past summer sailors ranged in age from 5 to 85. The oldest sailor, George Bradley, 85, purchased his boat  Delight  (#446) in 2015 and races all summer. The youngest sailors Anders, age 11, and his sister Wells, age 5, race with their father Jake Siewert in  Simba  (#200). When they fly the spinnaker, Anders takes the tiller while Jake manages the sails.

Shelter Island Yacht Club’s H12 fleet includes both wooden and fiberglass boats.   © Will Ricketson

More than 100 years after Herreshoff designed the H12 as a boat for children to learn to sail, the Shelter Island Yacht Club fleet continues to demonstrate that the boat remains a great design for those who want to enjoy the water.

More from WindCheck Magazine's Herreshoff Story Series

Share your Herreshoff Story.

We want to hear from our Herreshoff and America's Cup Hall of Fame Community.