Brigantine Yacht Club: Sic gloria transit mundi

Good Bye old friend--many fond memories.  I'll let the photos, taken by BYC member Paul Murray, speak for themselves.  The old building came down Monday, the 16th of September.  The club can only go up from here. 

Stay tuned.  I'm sure the rest of us will come to share Paul's enthusiasm for the new building.

Random Moth Boating Photos From the Mid-1930s and Early 1940s.

Charlie Miller, an old Moth Boat racer called me up the other day and said that Herb Davenport, from down in Elizabeth City had found some old pictures in a drawer and passed them along.  I'm a sucker for old photos if there's a Moth Boat connection.  Here we see young Sir Charles, aged 13.  As indicated, this picture was exposed in the year 1939.  You can do the math and figure out how old Charlie is today.  I'm not going to bother.  Instead I'm digging those pin-striped trousers and rakish grin.  The venue is Elizabeth City, no doubt at a Moth Boat regatta.

Charlie was apparently quite popular with the young ladies.  Donnie Wescoat, standing behind Charlie in this picture, told me they used to call him "lovie-duck"!  The girl with the dark glasses is Madeline Kammerman.  The girl to the extreme left of the group is Aleta Van Sant.  The young lady to the extreme right is unknown.  The venue in this instance is Clam Creek, the home of the old Evening Star YC of Atlantic City.  The kids are sitting on the front fender of Dorr Willey's Dodge.  The south end of Brigantine can be seen across Absecon Inset in the background.  Note what appears to be an early Ventnor or perhaps a Red Spot design Moth on the roof of the adjacent car.

Enjoying a "Co-Cola" and a smoke.  Madeline Kammerman with two unknown young lads.  The Atlantic City Coast Guard base can be seen in the left hand background.  Gunnar B. identifies the car with the tear drop head lamps as a '38 Ford 2-door Vickie. 

Great Bear, Moth Nr 123 with Joel Van Sant's son Jimmy in the cockpit.  Charlie borrowed this boat and won the New Jersey State Championship Regatta with Isabel Brear as crew.  Why Charlie needed a pretty young girl as a crew in a Moth Boat is anyone's guess.

More Evening Star action.  Many of the members owned the small houses which lined Clam Creek just down the street from the YC clubhouse, which survives today as the home of Kammerman's Marina, and launched off their own bulkheads.  Some of these homes still survive along Carson Avenue, although last year's hurricane did them no favors.  From left to right we see Peggy Kammerman, the 1937 women's World Champion (kneeling) , her sister Madeline and Aleta Van Sant.

The white Moth behind the three sailors on the dock is Joel Van Sant's Gretchen, Nr 606.  When racing resumed, after the end of WW II hostilities, Captain Joel won the 1946 Nationals in this boat.  Left to right, Aleta, Peggy, unknown man.

All dressed up for the Regatta Ball.  Note the A-model Ford peeking out from behind the houses.

A race, starting on Clam Creek in front of the ESYC's dock.  The Evening Star club hosted Moth fleet Nr 1.  Note that  all the boats have crews even though it appears to be a light air day!  Maybe those guys knew something we don't...

The scene shifts to Elizabeth City and the Pasquotank River Yacht Club, which had Moth fleet Nr 2.  Left to right: unknown, Doug Alexander (aka "dog"), Chuck Higgins, Eddie Gasch and Charlie Miller.

A blurry photograph of Herb Davenport sailing Blackbeard, built by Ernest Sanders.

Doug Alexander sailing Dopey, an early Dorr Willey-built Moth.

Here we see Chuck Higgins in Small Fry.  Opinions are divided as to whether or not this is a Dorr Willey Moth.  If so she carries an atypical rounded cockpit combing.  All the surviving Willey-built Moths have combings which are sharply peaked at the forward end.

Billy O'Neal died shortly after this photo was taken.  He picked up a splinter while diving off a piling and developed lockjaw.  Vaccinations for tetanus were relatively new in those days, and so many individuals were at risk.  When did you have your last booster shot?  If you can't remember it's probably time to get one.  The vaccination is good for about ten years.

Finally, included with the photos of Moths and sailors was this photograph of three women standing in front of a small beach house probably on the Carolina outer banks.  The significance here is that the Mrs. Willey in this picture is thought to be the mother of Dorr Willey, the well known Moth Boat builder.  Can anyone looking at these photos confirm this notion?  The woman in the striped dress is probably Herb Davenport Sr.'s mother since these pictures were found by Herb Jr. while sorting through family scrapbooks.  Mildred is unknown but perhaps another Davenport relative.

Spirou Sailing

Normally, Tweezerman is the blogosphere harbinger of obscure dinghy classes but the Spirou is one that I think even he hasn't heard of.  The Spirou was designed by Charles Bertels as a smaller entry level version of the Europe Dinghy suitable for junior sailors.  Bertels, the founder of the Belgian sailing magazine Yachting Sud, was also involved in the early popularization of the Europe Dinghy.  The boats are still sailed primarily in Belgium but perhaps with a little publicity this little boat might replace the dominant Optimist dinghy in at least a few clubs, much like the Bic Class dinghy is currently doing.  Anyway, the boats appeal to this Europe/Classic Moth sailor and the kids sailing in the videos look like they're enjoying the little boats.

The second video shows a Spirou Class start ("depart" if I heard the RC correctly).   More info about this class can be obtained here: <spirouclass@gmail.com>  Unfortunately the class website <www.spirouclass.be> appears not to function but I'll post the URL in the hopes that whoever is the class website guru will eventually fix it.

Last Tango on 10th Street.

This past Saturday the members of the Brigantine Yacht Club met at 10th Street and Bayshore Avenue to decommission the old clubhouse.  All the glassware, dishes, framed photos, interior furniture, memorabilia and appliances worth saving were packed up and moved out to a waiting 18-wheeler tractor-trailer box.  Exterior items that might prove useful in the future such as the front entry's awning and framework were removed as well.  Led by the BYC juniors, members wrote and painted their names, wishes for the future and fond fair wells to the Esso gas station/island post office that had been our home since the late 1940s when the original part of the structure was moved from the south end of the island to10th and Bayshore.  The old gas station was added on to over the winter of 1959-60 and over the years, the building witnessed and survived many storms including the Ash Wednesday Nor'Easter of 1962, during which the entire island briefly went underwater. 

Although we where able to kludge things back into functional shape for one last summer, Hurricane Sandy proved to be just too much for the old girl.  We eked by this summer with a building which would have been more costly to properly repair than replace.  And so, demolition is scheduled for some time this month. What follows is a fond fair well to a much loved building where I squandered many a pleasant day.  I came back in the quiet of the following morning to take these last photos. 

The curb side aspect of the club house looks gaunt now that the front awning has been removed.  The twin port holes and storm doors resemble a grim, pale face staring out through darkly circled eyes.

The bay side aspect.  It's obvious that the exterior of the building received minimum spring spruce-up maintenance this year.

This is the original part of the clubhouse--the old gas station.  One can still see the gas station's hip roof.  I remember when the cinder block addition was added over the winter of '59/60.  I imagine that the current junior sailors will tell people years from now that they remember the days of the "old" building, meaning what we see in these photos.

Here's what I remember.  This photo dates to the late 1950s and is courtesy of former member Fred Kray.

Interior "good-bye" graffiti.

People really got into the spirit of this.

What was it that my primary school teacher used to drum into us?  Something along the lines of "fools names and fools faces are always seen in public places."  My family joined BYC in '51.

Someone carefully harvested the globe for this outside light fixture and after carefully wrapping it in newspaper forgot to take the bulb.

It's no longer important that someone in their haste forgot to shut this back window.

All the salvaged stuff that didn't go to various island homes for safe keeping is inside this box waiting for spring.

We also hoisted the ramps up for the winter.  I've never seen this done so early in the season; usually members are sailing well into October.  This year is a little different.  Boats in the yard must be removed to make room for demolition and construction equipment so it made sense to square away the other fall work day chores while all hands were assembled.

One last backward glance.

Bottoms Up!

Last night we finally got around to consuming this particular bottle of red.  It was quite satisfactory as Mary Poppins might say.  I bought this when we stopped at Ventimiglia Winery on the New Jersey wine trail.  Part of the charm was the boat on the label, which I believe is a surviving member of an ancient class of racing yachts still active, either somewhere on Barnegat Bay or perhaps southern New York (maybe the LYC on the main sail indicates Larchmont Yacht Club).  However, I can find nothing about this boat via the all knowing www..  Perhaps Baydog or one of my other fellow travelers can comment.

Drag Race.

If you are a betting person, which would you put your money on as the fastest?  An open 60 Ocean Racer, a hydrofoiling Moth, a windsurfer or a kite boarder?  Place your mental bet and then watch this video.

The answer is here

Sorry Tillerman, no foiling Lasers in this match up.

Fabricating small parts with carbon fiber: A John Zseleczky Production.

Dear constant reader, you may recall that I posted some pix of Mark Saunders' redecked Europe-Moth a few months ago.  Mark's spars featured some neat attachment pieces fabricated from G-10 fiberglass board and carbon fiber cloth set in epoxy.  You may be curious as to how those parts were made; your diarist certainly is.  What follows is John Zseleczky's step by step instructions for making a forestay tang which can be bonded to a carbon fiber mast thus avoiding drilling holes for pop rivets as would be the case if one was attaching a conventional stainless steel hounds fitting.  This same strategy can be used to fabricate other small parts to bond hardware items to carbon fiber components such as fairleads for boom blocks, vang attachment, etc. V. useful info! Enjoy.

The finished forestay tang installed on Mark's carbon mast