More than 30 years ago, when Dan Karnovsky was the age Nick Karnovsky is now, Arthur Railton ran the committee boat and the Menemsha Pond races. He was extremely knowledgeable about all things nautical, and appeared rather strict and even stern. We all called him Mr. Railton, and I continued to do so until it seemed ridiculous to deny our evolving friendship. Appearances concealed a much softer if salty side, and his wit was revealed in person and in his weekly articles for the Gazette.

Art’s wife, Marge, was his lodestar. She was capable, kind and very bright. Her favorite television program was Jeopardy, and had she been in the studio she would have won thousands of dollars. Her job on the committee boat was to keep score, making sure to note which boats crossed the finish line in what order. Not easy to do when several craft approached almost simultaneously. When Marge could no longer make the trek down the hill I took over her job and continued to be amazed at how she managed it all.

A few stories from those days and many more were grist for Art’s weekly column. Two psychiatrists, Lane Amine and Milton Mazer, sailed a boat aptly named Sisyphus, and while pushing hard they were frequently the last to cross the finish line. In another anecdote sailors new to the races were to call out the names of their boats. One absent-minded professor misheard and thought he was to call out his own name, so his sunfish, Franco, was listed as such. Nevertheless, Franco Modigliani took the races seriously, and when he won the Nobel Prize for economics and was asked what he would do with the money, he answered that he would buy a new sail for his boat, thereby raising the profile of his small sunfish to that of a yacht.

July and August parties on Art’s deck overlooking Chockers were always fun, even the year the deck collapsed. We were all startled but no one was seriously hurt. Helping Art with the parties when he lived alone was somewhat different from helping out at Ken Iscol’s. In those days Art really needed an assistant host, and I would bring a tablecloth for his outdoor table, while he supplied the clothes pins to keep it from blowing away.

Charlie Shipway and his faithful companion, Buddy, eventually took over from Art, and now we have Capt. Bill Glazer, who keeps the fleet informed by e-mail and his audience writes back with alacrity. Even as a nonsailor I love to read the e-mails, just as folks all over the Vineyard used to enjoy Art’s sailing columns in the Gazette. In a way Art was the Homer of Menemsha Pond. His column reported the races in an almost mythical way, from the mysterious blooming of the marks each July to the heroic combat of the contestants vying for the battered cups and the ugliest trophy on sea or land. In Art’s telling, Margery Dangerfield took a place in Menemsha Pond legend similar to Helen’s in Troy.

The Vineyard Gazette recently reprinted a Just a Thought column Art wrote in 1991. In it he tells of a seagull he has been feeding summer after summer and “each summer he repays me with a lesson in humility. Not that seagulls are humble, quite the opposite. That’s where the message is.” In the preceding paragraph Art reveals that sometimes when told “how great my last Gazette piece was . . . visions of Thurber and E.B. White and other greats dance through my head. It’s good for the soul, unwarranted though it is. Just don’t let it last.” Now we who knew and admired Art will surely let it last, A man whose ambition was to write like Thurber and White and took lessons in humility from a seagull, is someone we will always hold dear, and be proud to have known as our commodore.

This speech was delivered at the reception following the Admiral Margery Dangerfield Regatta on Sept. 3.