I know that some cat sailors do belong to yacht clubs or sailing clubs. But most do not. I am just curious. It would be interesting to know the reasons, both for and against joining clubs, and the experiences some multihull people may have had with clubs, for better or worse.

Mary,

Here in Point Pleasant NJ, it's a matter of returns for vested dollars and lifestyle.

1:) No Dock Fee's 1,200-2000 Season
2:) No Club fee's 600-1,200 Season
3:) Newbies to the shore (WOOOOOOOOOOHAAAAAAAAAAA) with PWC's and boats speeding in no wake zone.
4:) Style of boating simply not interested in.
5:) No interest in sailing, power is majority here.
6:) One upmanship whether in boat, at club, simply being yourself.


The biggest factor is that club is not a beach lifestyle. How many members have simply tied up boat lit a fire and snuggled with a bottle of wine on the beach.
I will bet none.

Mike

Mary,
Sorry you didn't accompany Rick to Gulfport this weekend for the Taipan Nationals (Great Fun). I had looked forward to meeting you.
It would also have been a great answer to your question!
Gulfport Yacht Club is a small, quiet, laid back sailing club that has a mix of small (under 25') monohulls and beach cats. We race the cats, and anyone else that is game twice a month.
We have no one-upsmanship, no snobbery just fun.
Our dues, including dry-slip for mast up storage for ramp or beach launch is $400.00.
Those who have not tried such clubs don't know what they're missing.
Come up next year....you'll see. Ask Rick.
Thanx
John Maples
Commodore
Gulfport Yacht Club

Mary:

Out west here a large percentage of the folks who sail beach catamaran belong to yacht clubs. Just yesterday I was at a regatta at Cabrillo Beach yacht club and an INTER 20, NACRA 5.2, Tornado and various other multihulls who are all members at CBYC were racing in a really fun pursuit race. King Harbor Yacht Club in Los Angeles has an excellent beach catamaran group composed primarily of NACRAs.

Alamitos Bay Yacht Club has a very good contingent of catamarans with some twenty or so on the property in dry storage and many more triamarans. Hobie Tigers, foxes, NACRAs, and A class make up the dominant number at that club.

The costs to belong to clubs is actually cheap in Los Angeles.

You may NOT STORE YOUR CATAMARAN in your driveway in most Southern California cities nor in your back yard if they are visible from the street and there is no beach storage for 99% of the coastline. Your option therefor is to store your boat in a public mast up storage as they have in Marina del Rey with prices running from $85-125 a month. The mast down storage that is well away from the water is $65-80 a month. when you look at a club like Alamitos Bay Yacht Club in Long Beach the costs are really quite cheap in comparison to public storage:

ABYC Equity Membership : ~$1200
Mast up storage: $60 a month
Monthly dues $15-40 a month depending on your age.

Add to that the advantage of regatta discounts, hot showers, security, a dining room, a member SCYRA club affiliation and you have an unbeatable deal.

Mission Bay Yacht club in San Diego is host to the INTER 20 fleet and there are dozens of boats in mast up storage there.

In retrospect I think a majority of active Southern California beach catamarans sail out of yacht clubs to one degree or another.

Are there still "MULTI PHOBIA" clubs here in So Cal? You bet. But not many of them and you probably wouldn't want to hang out with them anyway.

MM

In our area, the yacht clubs are expensive and exclusive. Even the Eastport Yacht Club, which is probably the most down to Earth and multi-friendly has a waiting list and sponsor requirements. There are probably other options, but in 'Nap-town those are the "scene". It takes money, time, and brown-nosing. I think cat-sailors would rather just go sail. In Galesville, there is the West River Sailing Club, who started out as "Our Own Damn Yacht Club" in defiance of the blue blazers. Now, they are among those who don't care for us joining, with all the usual "too much storage space, blah, blah, blah". Beach cat sailors thrive when they have a venue that is friendly to the beach cat style - a place for mast up storage, push the boat in water, and no dress requirements for the club house if you have one at all.

I suspect this is the same all over. The more exclusive clubs have no need for us, unless the only sailors in the area are multi sailors (ah, Heaven...). So, if we belong to clubs, they are the ones that are more down-to-Earth and value sailing and friendship above all.

Here's a true story - I was recently in San Diego for the first time. Loved it! Being as the LV Cup is under way, I figured I'd go over to the San Diego Yacht Club. Maybe given the Cup history, they had some sort of club tour for those interested in visiting. I was stopped at the gate. I said I was a sailor from the East and interested in seeing one of the important places of sailing. No dice. The only way I could get on premises was if I was a member or a guest of a member. Or, if I was a card-carrying member of the Annapolis Yacht Club they'd let me in. In other words, if I had a membership in another club as expensive as theirs they'd let me in. For fun I asked if being a member of the WRCRA would count - I guess he wasn't impressed by a small multihull racing outfit from Galesville. He seemed pained that I even mentioned it, but that was my point for mentioning it in the first place. Anyway, who needs that crap? Is that anyway to grow interest in the sport? Is that anyway to break down the barriers that people see when they view sailing as the sport of the rich? Of course not, but these clubs don't care and will have no interest in changing until there are no people with big checks lining up. So, beach cat sailors will join the clubs with a more grass-roots emphasis or they'll just go sailing wherever they find a launch spot.
Rant mode off.


Anyhow, Art Stephens told us we should be joining these clubs and taking them over from the inside. I agree to the notion, but I'm not sure it's that easy.

Looks like I was poking around the wrong places! Too bad we don't have much of those kind of possibilities out here...

Hi Mary,

I Totally agree with Mike,
Most yacht club members see us as outcasts, we use the same facilities but pay less.
They are looking down to us because we did not spend US 100.000+ or more,
And a envious about the speed we are making, when they are sitting on deck, they are in mine opinion only looking if the are being recognized by someone with a smaller boat.

Some of them do visit our part of the marina and have a honest interest in our sport.
Much often I invite them for a ride when possible, we show them what fun it is.
Many times they end up buying a cat themselves.

The owner of the marina we are sailing recently bought a old Hoby himself.

Nobody owns the water, it’s all about respect for each other.

I belonged to a "Yacht Club" for about seven years. I left my SC20 on the beach and was charged the same as a slip. When my boat was damaged by someone moving a trailer; I complained to the management and was blown off. When I filed charges with the police; all the non-member "guest boats" left the beach. When there were about 30-40 boats on the beach before the complaint and after there were about SIX; it became clear that the damage was done by some "guest boat" and there was nothing that would be done. So I was out about $2800 for repairs. Not to mention the "guests" playing on my tramp. When I called every sailor with a boat on the beach not one had a "guest boat" there.

When I filled out an entry form to race on the Fourth of July it was lost and when I was informed the entry time had passed??? No racing for a cat in an open to all comers event...

I keep my boats at a marina. They understand they are in business warehousing boats.

thommerrill
F25c 009 Charisma
ARC22 2234 Widowmaker
FMS SC20 57

Keith: I know what you mean about the area yacht clubs up there. Before my family moved down to NC, we were on the waiting list to get into the Tred Avon Yacht Club in Oxford MD. After my Dad's relocation, and subsequent move back to Maryland, they are now back on the waitlist, albeit on the end. We're good friends with some of the members there, so they have let me use the beach to launch the 17 there before, but I always get those "looks" from suspecting members as if I'm infiltrating an enemy compound or something. I've never come into the clubhouse nasty and sandy, nor have I ever been in anyone's way. I guess its just that I've got twice as many hulls as they do

Having been a member of a yacht club here in SE Wisconsin for 6 years, I witnessed first hand the attitudes of the Yacht club bunch...

It was not appreciated when we sailed up to the dock, tied up for an hour and grabbed a beer and a burger at the bar. Nobody complained when it was a 30-foot power boat doing the same thing. Oh yeah, they buy lots 'o gas.

Cats are a focal point of ridicule to many monohull racers, especially with the rockstar crowd. "Dude, why dont you get a real boat!", "Yeah whatever, go play on the beach!" or "You could have bought a j/24 for that kind of cash!". Point is, I have a cat becasue I want a cat, It provides thrills that you just cant get on a monohull.

Snobbery plays a role, too. But hey, you dont join a yacht club if you are broke. You want your wine and cheese served in the aft salon, fine. I prefer ham and cheese on the beach between races.

I got bored with the garbage. Tired of being told cats were a stupid waste of fiberglass and resin. I quit and started my own program with my own boat. I sail with people now who have common interests and an appreciation of the fun that catsailing brings.

The only benefit to a YC that I can see is mast-up storage. As about 1/3 of my sailing is done at 'away events' between 80 and 300 miles distant, I'd have to take down the stick about as often as not anyway.

Fortunately I live in a place where no one hassles me about leaving the boat in the driveway. Hopefully the Californians will stay on their side of the hill and we can keep it that way.

several of the beachcat sailors here on St Croix belong to the yacht club, mainly for the security, but also the convience, we keep our boats on the beach year round...theres a big yard off the beach that we can do any repairs if needed....and the scenery aint bad either...

a few years ago, i pulled into a local club. about a two hoursail from my place. four of us had just sailed three hours upwind through a 25 knot blow. one my main halyard sheaves had broken and the halyard had cut through the top ten inches of mast. we were wet, cold, and tired. we asked to put in on a dock and we were told, no. i explained our situation and told the dock guy that our electric motor would not push the boat. he said that they did not take 'your kind of boat here.' i showed him my reciprocal card and explained to him, again, how bad off we were. i was still told that i could not stay. i asked how he would treat a flag officer from my club. (remember, i am shivering and dripping and basically looking like a bag of krap) he told me that the situation would be different. i asked if there was a flag officer from his club there as the vice commodore of my club (me) would like a place to put his catamaran. that is the only reason i was not welcome. because i was a cat sailor. no blue blazer. no cap.
now, basketcase is not your normal beach cat. i wet sail her off a mooring. she is a modified tomcat 6.2 with fixed wings. all up she is 20' long with a sprit by 26' wide and about 650 lbs, so a spot on the beach is not for me.
wy have sailled out of the aquatic park sailing club for seven or so years. it is a small club of about 100 small keel boats and a wharam and me. these people have welcomed my wife, son and i into there little paradise and treat me as an equal. last year i was voted in as commodore.
guess where we did not send reciprocals to this year.

here's our "parking lot" on St Croix

Man, its just NOT FAIR

So if you weren't a "flag offficer" you could just go drown yourself...what kind of people populate these pompous clubs. Whatever happened to the common law of the sea..."help those in distress"??? I never heard it said "only help flag officers"!!!

thom

http://www.osyc.com

check it out: a real yacht club for dinghies and beachcats. Recip privs with every GYA YC on the Coast.

Sorry about having to delete the graphic that was really wide, but it expanded the width of all posts and made it impossible to read the rest of the posts.
Try again as an attachment.
Thanks
Rick

setting an absolute table width would help that problem

I consider our club to be pretty catamaran friendly.

Here is how we would handle your situation:

• Offer you help if you needed it
• Ask if you intended to leave your boat at the dock for an extended period of time
• If leaving your boat AND you had a good reason to leave your boat, we would move it to an appropriate spot ot of the way
• We would find out when you were coming back and also see if you had proof of membership from your club
• We would also try to comfirm that your club was not just a paper organization

If we let everyone who wants to use our facilities just launch or park their boats at our club, we honestly would not have room for our members. While we try to be hospitable, we are not in the business of giving free service. Our members pay dues to use the facilities. Why should someone who doesn't pay at their own club use our facilities for free?

We DO have a paper yacht club in town. We charge them and their members for using our facilities. The few times we tried to be charitable they overran the place, parking their cars in front of people's boats and generally littering up the place.

So, you see, there are reasons some clubs feel it is necessary to scrutinize attempts to use the property w/o paying. I am not saying that is the case in your circumstance, but it may have had something to do with it.

We also have yacht clubs that try to be exclusive. The idea behind those clubs is that they DON'T want new members. They want to exclude everyone. In most cases, the facilities genuinely belong to the membership and they have no intentions or motivation to share them with anyone except their own private guests. That's life. You got to look at those clubs as if you were beaching your boat in their own private back yard. NO, they don't have to welcome you. YES, they may even call the authorities.

Rudder Club of Jacksonville