Atlantic Yacht Club

The Atlantic Yacht Club, located in the Seagate, Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY as well as in Bay Ridge, was for many years one of the largest and most prestigious yacht clubs in New York City. The club currently sponsors a junior sailing program in Gravesend Bay.

History

The Atlantic Yacht Club was organized in 1866 by a breakaway group from the earlier Brooklyn Yacht Club. The Atlantic Yacht Club rapidly developed into one of the more active yacht clubs in New York, hosting regular regattas and competing against the leading yacht clubs in the region. The club's annual Atlantic Race Week and Lipton Cup regatta regularly drew sailors from around the world, competing in multiple classes. The club was also a driving force behind the formation of the United States Power Squadrons in 1914.

The club's original clubhouse was a barge that was moored at the foot of Court Street at the end of Gowanus Creek, facing Gowanus Bay. In the early 1880s, the club acquired a waterfront farm property on 55th Street in Yellow Hook, Brooklyn. The neighborhood subsequently assumed the name of Bay Ridge, a name suggested by club-member and leading Brooklyn florist James Weir. The converted clubhouse was soon replaced by a larger facility constructed at the end of the club's new pier at the end of 55th Street. A marina and anchorage were established at the same site at that time.

A new clubhouse at Seagate was designed by Frank Tallman Cornell and built in 1898 on Poplar Avenue overlooking Gravesend Bay. The move was driven in large part by Commodore George Jay Gould I, the prominent financier and a son of Jay Gould. The club attracted New York socialites and aristocrats, including prominent members of the Auchincloss, Dodge, Elsworth, Fish, Gould, Hoagland, Iselin, Vermilye and Voorhees families, among many others. Sir Thomas Lipton, J.P. Morgan and the Earl of Dunraven (the British challenger for the America's Cup, with his yacht Valkyrie) were among the club's prominent members. Known for corinthian sailing, for many years the club sponsored one of the most active racing programs in New York Harbor, holding races almost weekly through the summer season. Sir Thomas Lipton, a five-time unsuccessful British challenger for the America's Cup, typically stayed at the club during his America's Cup campaigns. His yachts Shamrock docked at the Atlantic Yacht Club during the Cup campaigns.

The Atlantic Yacht Club played a major role with respect to the famous Kaiser's Cup transatlantic race of 1905. The race, initially proposed on September 18, 1903 1904 at the Sea Gate club-house during a dinner to commemorate the retirement as club Commodore of Robert E Tod, was at Lipton's recommendation encharged to the New York Yacht Club. The yacht Atlantic, sponsored by the New York Yacht Club, and skippered by Charles Barr, a three-time winner of the America's Cup, won the race in record time, establishing trans-Atlantic mono-hull records that stood for 100 years. The AYC's entry, the yacht Thistle, built in 1901 by New York's Townsend & Dourney, and owned and skippered by Robert E Tod, finished 10th. Tod, a former AYC Commodore, was the only owner-skipper in the regatta.

The Atlantic Yacht Club's Seagate clubhouse burned down in 1934. The club soldiered on for a number of years thereafter, becoming largely inactive in the 1950s. Today, the AYC operates as a family oriented sailing club based off Bay Parkway, directly across Gravesend Bay from its earlier Sea Gate location.

References and External links