SAILING AND REGATTA CREWING

Sailing and Regatta Crewing is a morning in early July on the water off Oyster Bay for eight members: a place each as crew aboard boats racing on Long Island Sound, whether or not one has sailed before. No one is expected to own a boat. Beginners are put where they can be useful, and taught on the water.

It exists because the quickest way to learn to sail is to be useful on someone else’s boat.

The Corinthians

In the old dictionaries a Corinthian is a gentleman who steers his own yacht or rides his own horses, and a Corinthian race is one in which only amateurs handle the boats. The word came down from the proverbial wealth of ancient Corinth, by way of the young men of fashion.

The Seawanhaka Yacht Club was founded in September 1871 by twelve men aboard William Swan’s sloop Glance, at anchor off Centre Island in Oyster Bay, and named for the people who had lived on the island. It added “Corinthian” to its name in 1881, and has kept professionals off the helm in most of its local races. It settled on Centre Island for good in 1891, partly because a horse and carriage could cross the causeway at every tide but the full-moon highs, and opened its clubhouse there on Memorial Day weekend in 1892.

In 1895 the club put up the Seawanhaka Cup, to be raced in small boats between clubs of different nations, “for the purpose of promoting small yacht racing and developing the Corinthian spirit among yachtsmen”. It is the oldest yachting trophy from America still raced for.

Theodore Roosevelt, whose summer White House was Sagamore Hill, on the next neck of land, rowed on the bay.

The bay still races. Seawanhaka sails on Sundays through the summer and on Friday evenings, and Sagamore Yacht Club, whose unofficial motto is “No one gets left on the dock,” on Wednesday evenings.

The Morning

Eight places, on boats racing out of Oyster Bay whose owners the Court knows.

The party meets at the harbour early and is introduced to the skippers, and each member is shown over the boat before the start.

Beginners begin on the rail. The crew’s weight, out to windward, keeps the boat flat, and racing keelboats carry more crew than they strictly need for that reason. Those who know more trim the sheets or work the pit.

The racing is done by midday, ahead of the afternoon and evening thunderstorms the Sound has on a few days of each summer month.

Lunch is laid ashore afterwards, and the morning is raced again over it.

What Is Asked

Ask the skipper’s permission before stepping aboard.

Soft shoes with non-marking soles. Hard soles scratch a deck and slip when it is wet.

The skipper’s word is final.

A life jacket, worn, and the skipper told whether one can swim.

Everyone stays to help put the boat away.

A blazer for lunch.

The Places

Eight. It is as many as the boats can take without anyone being in the way.

Members are written to in May.

The sum is stated in the invitation and covers the boats and lunch.

The trains from Penn Station reach Oyster Bay in about an hour and a half. Henley Royal Regatta is rowed the same week.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.