From the July 26, 1940 Gazette:
Racing in Menemsha Pond was unknown until seven or eight years ago. The early settlers of the Vineyard had a more utilitarian use for their boats, which were built for stamina not speed. One hardy family had always sailed on the pond, however, and it is to them that racing in this secluded section can first be traced.
“As far back as I can remember, my father always had one or two boats on the pond.” Wilfred Huntington, interrupted in the midst of pea-picking, reminisced about old days on the pond. “Then, about seven or eight years ago, Paul Campbell brought a sneakbox to the pond. I used to race him there, just for fun. A year or so later, Allen Flanders, honorary commodore of the club for the past few years, bought two or three boats. Every year since then two or three boats have been added to the fleet. There was a motley crew — Wee Scots, sneakboxes, Cape Cods, dogboats, cats.”
Questioned concerning the new rules which he urged the sailors to adopt, Mr. Huntington said: “I should like very much to see the organization become more serious. There are a lot of kids here who are learning racing. Someday they are going to want to race somewhere else and they might just as well learn here to race the right way. Who, me? No, I certainly will continue to take along a few cans of beer.”
Racing in the good old days was an informal procedure. The people who were going to compete sailed up to the starting buoy almost anytime during the afternoon. When everybody seemed to be in position, Mr. Flanders would shout that the race had begun. “The news of the start,” says Jimmy Miller, “would slowly move from boat to boat until everybody knew.”
Racing has been an easygoing Sunday habit. Good-natured kidding seems to have been the order of the day. Fouls were usually accepted with rare good humor, since most of them were accidental or due to ignorance. Ignorance, it seems, never keeps a sailor out of a Menemsha race. “Why just in the last race,” says Commodore Flanders, “hardly anyone knew which side of the buoy to go around. Some went around one side, some another, and some hit it. But we didn’t disqualify any of them. Would you have?” Nobody seriously cared what course the other boats took or how they took them. That was their business; the point was to have a good time.
Celebrations were often carried onto the pond. On the Fourth of July, firecrackers and beer were as much part of the race as the boats themselves. “Why, one Fourth of July,” commented Peter Kuh, “one skipper had firecrackers and beer aboard. Every time he’d come close and want to pass, he’d heave a firecracker in a can on board the other boats. They stayed out of his way that day.”
There are many stories connected with the irregular tactics of the friendly sailors. No passing boat ever sailed by without a friendly greeting and an apology for passing. They might have fouled one another, but they did it politely. “Bob Ascher had a boat that was seldom beaten,” said Peter Kuh. “It had the sharpest bow of any boat in the race and he had the loudest voice. When he came bearing down on you shouting ‘right of way,’ you got out of the way.”
“But Peter used to use the motor on his Coo-Coo,” added Jimmy Miller. “It was a tremendous old boat and between the amount of sail she carried and the motor, he seldom lost.” “I never used the motor,” said Peter reflectively, “except when I was behind and they couldn’t see the exhaust. Of course sometimes we taxied into starting position.”
All this is now relegated to the past. Starting last Sunday the new Menemsha Yacht Club, never before dignified with a name, went into action. It was named, says Willy Huntington, because while Edward Greenbaum thought the New York Yacht Club was really a better name, he also thought there was already a club of that name. According to Willy Huntington, the new chairman, the new rules will seek to bring formality to the races. Many others in the club hope the old flavor of Sunday racing will not be lost.
From the July 26, 1986 Gazette:
On Menemsha Pond, in July and August, it’s always celebrity time. Up-Island is B.Y.O.B. country, Bring Your Own Boat. If you do you’ll be sailing with all sorts of celebrities. There’s a tough Chairman of the Board who wears a different hat every race day. One grizzled salt who’s been skippering Sunfish ever since the Alcorts invented them, holds the endurance record for sailing with a lighted pipe. No matter how wet the going. the pipe burns — his own perpetual flame. For a couple of years there was a handsome movie star in the fleet, but he’s missing this year. There just wasn’t a phone booth handy and it didn’t look right for Superman to finish last. You’ll sail with a Nobel Laureate, who has learned that economics is not the only dismal science. There are doctors, lawyers, judges, mechanics, psychiatrists, mothers, editors, rabbis and rectors, to mention a few. You name it and you will find it on the pond unless something big interferes. That’s what happened last Saturday when one skipper phoned to apologize for not being able to race: “Got to go to a big family wedding.” Talk about confusing your priorities!
From the August 31, 2007 Gazette:
The 2007 racing season concluded this week with the quest for the famous, or infamous Marjorie Dangerfield Trophy. When first awarded 40 to 45 years ago, more or less (Menemsha Pond sailors are known to be rather casual about statistics — and many other things), the bronze trophy was a small elegant statue of a Girl Scout. It is now a large, grotesque, inelegant monstrosity. The evolution occurred because the first winner decorously covered the bronze figure with a Camp Fire Girl’s attire, and each winner thereafter felt obliged to add to or modify the trophy. While some of these changes have been in comparatively good taste, there are others that definitely were not. One winner, probably with pirate ancestry amputated Marjorie’s bronze right leg and replaced it with a wooden one. Another winner, following the previous year’s tasteful addition of a seagull flying overhead, added an unseemly white splotch on Marjorie’s head. Former Commordore Art Railton christened the award the world’s ugliest trophy, which is banished to the back of the winner’s darkest closet over the winter. It makes one wonder about Menemsha Pond sailors.
As Art Railton noted in one of his racing columns: “Sailboat racing is so mystical that even after the race is over, the skipper doesn’t know how he did. There is a mysterious handicapping process that involves split-second timing and three decimal divisors, a process that takes place after the race in some secret chamber with the shades drawn. Only the next day does the skipper find out who won. But one thing is certain. No matter who has won, nobody ever loses.”
The Menemsha Pond racers will be back on the water for the 2009 season the first week in July.
Compiled by Cynthia Meisner
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