Beverly Yacht Club

   

R. Henry Norweb III, Commodore

On behalf of the Beverly Yacht Club and its members, welcome to the 2009 Marion-Bermuda Race. Please enjoy our hospitality.

BYC was established in 1872 by Edward Burgess in Beverly, Massachusetts as a club for racing smaller boats not recognized in the Eastern Yacht Club racing program. For more than 20 years the yacht club had no home but ran races in waters that were convenient for its members from Marblehead to Quisset. In August of 1880 the Beverly group organized the first regatta held at Monument Beach where they had come to enjoy the spirited winds of Buzzards Bay. The club finally settled down in 1895 by leasing a house on Wings Neck which it then purchased four years later.

In 1912 Beverly Yacht Club purchased land on Butler's Point, incorporated itself a year later and in the spring began construction on a pier and clubhouse. Since 1913 the club has had to relocate several times due to the ravages of hurricanes. In 1955 it purchased the Register house at 99 Water Street in Marion.

We take pride in being a yacht club and only a yacht club. We are engaged in no other sport. We do not even have a Social Member category. Yachting is the common denominator for our entire membership. Although on occasion we fuss among ourselves, the Beverly Yacht Club has a strong sense of purpose and unity. This enables us to field a huge corps of volunteers...and we need them.

We ran over 400 races in 2008, with series racing taking place five days a week between early June and Labor Day. We hosted the J-24 International Women's Open Regatta, the Buzzards Bay Regatta (the largest all-volunteer regatta on the East Coast), the Corsair Nationals and the Beverly Junior Regatta. We have an aggressive schedule again this year. This coming fall we will be hosting the US Team Racing Championships.

We have a cruising squadron that is so large it is sometimes jokingly referred to as an armada. It certainly must have looked that way to some smaller ports of call east of Mount Desert during last year's cruise to Maine.

There is tremendous support for our Junior Program. We recognize these youngsters are the future of our club and our sport. Our program has produced some great competitors. Most recently, Stuart McNay went on from here to compete in the 470 Class at the 2008 Olympics.

Our onshore facilities are a successful collaboration between our House Committee and staff. Their common goal is to make the experience ashore an extension of the yachting and good fellowship that takes place in the harbor, in the bay and beyond. We enjoy hosting a number of visiting yacht clubs each year, some that come back with flattering regularity. Club Manager Joe Odachowski and his hard working staff deserve a large measure of the credit for this and so much else that allows members and guests to have peaceful enjoyment of our club.

You will be the last Marion Bermuda competitors to walk up and down our existing pier. This coming fall it will be completely replaced with a wider one. Since we need to make do with the present pier through the end of the season, please no whittling off a piece as a souvenir.

When you walk up the pier for the first time I hope your first impression of our club is a good one. As you walk down the pier on the way to the start of the race, I hope your entire experience will have been consistent with that first impression.

As this year's Commodore, I personally wish to extend a warm welcome to you and good luck to all!

Blue Water Sailing Club

   

Patricia Dieselman, Commodore

The Blue Water Sailing Club is proud to be a sponsoring club for the Marion to Bermuda Race for 2009. This year is especially exciting for us as we are celebrating our 50th year since our founding in 1959.

The BWSC pursues safe boating, cruising, racing, and good fellowship among sailors all year round. We are a virtual club with no permanent clubhouse with a membership including more than 175 boats from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, Connecticut, Chesapeake Bay and Florida. Volunteerism is the lifeblood of our organization as our members run all of our events.

During the winter months we get together for a ski weekend somewhere in New England and hold educational seminars. Some of the seminars this year included:

• Mutihull Sailing Experiences
• The Art and Science of Sailing
• What’s New in Rigging?
• First Aid, CPR, and AED Training and Certification
• Couples cruising
• Reading Weather Yourself

In the spring we kick off the season with our Spring Dinner where we present our sailing plans for the summer and fall months followed by our Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner in the Fall in which cruising friends reunite over cocktails and dinner. Participants and race winners are honored at that time and our new Flag Officers and Board of Governors are voted in.

About every other year we have organized charter flotillas at destinations in such faraway places as Turkey, the BVI’s, France, Croatia and Greece. We also sail the Canadian waters for more remote cruising.

Each year we sponsor an all woman’s cruise, a cruise along the south shore of New England, a down east cruise, plus smaller weekend regattas at every holiday weekend though Columbus Day. In addition we have informal rendezvous throughout the season to supplement the planned events. This year we incorporated KidSail -- weekend cruises with young families in mind. Club racing is present at almost every on the water event. BWSC racing ranges from casual to hotly contested events. Blue Water tends to be well represented at offshore events such as the Marion to Bermuda Race. Our members are frequently found in the Caribbean and the Bahamas and are always ready to extend a warm welcome to fellow yachtsmen. So if you notice our burgee flying on a masthead or starboard spreader come by and say “Hello”.

The Blue Water Sailing Club wishes every boat and her crew on this year’s race a safe and happy voyage. May you see the sun and the stars with fair winds abeam.

Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club

   

David Skinner, Commodore

Welcome to the 2009 edition of the Marion-Bermuda Race! Whether you are sailing to our beautiful island on board one of the race entrants, flying in to join friends and family or joining us on island for the festivities the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club extends a warm welcome. We are proud to co-sponsor this race together with the Beverly Yacht Club and the Blue Water Sailing Club of Massachusetts and are equally proud to be the Bermuda host club for the race. Originating in 1977 as the brainchild of RHADC Past Commodore Geoffrey “Dickie” Bird of Bermuda and Dave Kingerry of Massachusetts, the Marion Race has become a fixture on the Bermuda and international ocean racing calendars which participants eagerly look forward to every other year. This race is fundamentally a “friends and family” race, and we look forward to welcoming old friends and introducing new friends to Bermuda and the hospitality of the RHADC. It is impressive given the current economic climate that at the time of writing this over 50 entrants have registered for this year’s race, and we intend to welcome them as guests in our home and show them the best time we can. Their support for our race is commendable. For those familiar with the festivities at the Bermuda end of the race, the traditional flag lowering ceremony will be performed every evening at sunset, and a word to the wise for those who are not familiar with this institution – avoid the stretch of road below the flagpole. You’ll find out why.

Our organizing committee has been busy for months planning the Bermuda activities for the race, from setting up the duty desk and support functions, signing up the small army of volunteers who help make it all work and most importantly organizing the social calendar for the week. There will be plenty to do, culminating with the prize giving and gala dinner which will this year be held at the historical and picturesque Commissioner’s House in Dockyard. You will not want to miss this event!

Until then, enough said from me. Fair winds to the sailors, and safe travels to the families and friends joining us from across the pond. We look forward to welcoming you all at the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club in June.

- June 2009