Brooklyn Yacht Club

In 1946, a group of men discovered that they had three things in common: enthusiasm for boating, love of the sea and rejection from all boating clubs in the area.    

Undaunted, these men held tight to their dream and decided to do an ordinary thing but in an extraordinary way. They formed their own club. This was ordinary. But they established it upon the extraordinary founding principle that their club would not practice exclusion. Rather it would be a club of inclusion, one that would glory in diversity.  For our first two years meetings were held at the Bill Brown Post Memorial Hall in Sheepshead Bay.  Our membership grew, and in 1948, we were able to purchase a barge.  What a lovely barge it was, complete with galley, deck,  and dance floor.  Unfortunately, our stay in this waterborne home was to last only two years. A slightly inebriated caretaker, smoking in bed, started a fire that sent our dream Club House up in smoke. Misfortune was only one side of the coin. Good fortune was imprinted on the other side in the form of a generous insurance policy.  From the smoldering waterline of our lost barge, we looked north. We found a rag-tag commercial marina named "Happy's Boat Basin."  We knew it had a clubhouse and docks. And, we ignored the rumors about its former life as a prohibition era speakeasy and (dare we say) bordello!  The ultimate purchase of "Happy's" did not occur until 1978, but our club grew as an organization. The outward manifestations were our celebrations: Founder's Day, Commissioning Day and Decommissioning Day, Birthday Parties and any good excuse for merriment. But the inward growth proved to be much more important. We became a cohesive group, characterized by genuine concern for each other, whether on the water, or on land. Our founding principle blossomed into an exciting, occasionally raucous, but always dedicated community.  The decade of the 1990's saw an influx of new members who shared our founding fathers dream. They are people of immense energy, creativity and talent who virtually reconstructed the clubs facilities.  They counted on each other as friends in the same way as our founding fathers in 1946.                                                                And the movement continues.

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