Autobiography - NU Yacht Club
A highlight of my college career was joining the Northeastern University Yacht Club in my sophomore year. The Yacht Club had a sailing team that competed with other New England colleges. I was elected Commodore and brought in my classmate Bill Robinson as treasurer. It was a fun four year adventure. We formed a racing team that competed up and down the east coast. The university provided a small stipend to pay for our expenses. We collected modest dues from the members. Our club used the MIT sailing pavilion on the north side of the Charles River. All the sailing clubs had coaches and their own boats. We had nothing. We practiced at MIT in Tech dinghies. Tech Dinghies were 10’ sailboats with one sail and two crew. Several of our club members had sailing experience. We did OK in the regattas. We didn’t come in first and we didn’t come in last. We sailed at Harvard, Tufts, Boston College and the Coast Guard Academy and several others. Every time we raced it was in a new type of boat we had never sailed. Each college team had a unique boat that gave them an advantage. We raced at the Coast Guard Academy in Ravens (16’ sloop rig), Shields (30’ sloop) and Ludders (44’ yawl). Remember we only sailed on 10’ dinghies. We had a crew of dinghy sailors racing in 44’ yawls on Long Island sound in heavy weather. One of my favorite photos shows Bill Robinson. Brian Donovan and me standing straight up with the boat at a 30° angle. The photographer didn’t know they should line up the horizon. It was a honking day on Long Island Sound.
Our NU sailing Team was co-ed. Some races had women’s divisions. Priscilla attended Boston College but on several away regattas she was on our crew. If anyone wants to contest any regattas in the 1970’s they will find the name Priscilla Smith on the NU roster. The race committees did not check student ID’s.
Another memorable moment was when we were at the Coast Guard Academy for a regatta in November. Their was a blizzard the night before. When we arrived at the boat we used the bailing bucket to shovel the snow. That was a cold day.
The NU yacht club became a “thing” on campus. Our membership skyrocketed. We made a proposal to the NU board of directors to get additional funding. Most of the members didn’t know NU had a yacht club or a competitive racing team. They doubled our funding. My presentation positioned the sailing team as more competitive than the football team because we competed against Harvard and the football team did not. We used the funding to have great parties, buy life jackets, foul weather gear and pay for motels and meals for away regattas.
As our club grew I decided to give us a competitive advantage. Whenever we hosted a regatta at MIT they crushed us because they had a full time coach. I moved the NU sailing program to Community Boating on the south side of the Charles River. We had boats (Cape Cod 16’ dinghies) that no other schools sailed. We finally had our own competitive advantage.
In my junior year as Commodore I went for the gold. My goal was to finally get the NU sailing team their own yacht club marina with our own boats. I found a location on the south side of the Charles River on Massachusetts Ave. It was a large dock owned by the MDC (Massachusetts District Commission). My dream was the MDC would lease the dock to NU and we would keep our boats there. I knew I would need support from the top. The yacht club had a faculty advisor that was pretty much useless. I had trouble finding out who he was after three years as Commodore. I explained my plan and asked him to get me an audience with the NU president Asa Knowles. That was the only thing he did for the YC in four years. I had my opportunity. My presentation focused on making NU a powerhouse in the New England sailing community equal to the revered NU hockey team. I brought along a sailing team sweat shirt as a gift and explained my vision to Asa. It was going very well until I shared the location of the future NU yacht club. Asa leaned forward and stroked the gift I had given to him. Then he sat back and told me his condo overlooked the MDC dock I wanted. He said every night he sits on his balcony and sees people on the dock smoking, drinking and doing drugs. No deal. I did get funding for two Flying Juniors. The first boats ever owned by NU.
It was a fun experience as Commodore. I was awarded the James Kenneth Colbourn award to the outstanding NU sailor. Eventually the sailing team moved back to MIT. In 2010 the family of a NU sailor from Australia made an endowment to hire a full time sailing coach. I wish them well.