On many an early summer morning nine-year-old Maggie Sullivan works her hardest to fight the wind but still, her small sailboat sometimes capsizes in the Detroit River. She might be young but she’s been tipping over, righting herself and learning to become a sailor for the past two summers as part of east Detroit’s Bayview Yacht Club Junior Sailing program. So she takes the soaking in stride.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sullivan says upon returning to land. “You just get up and keep going again.”
Bayview—nestled like a boating oasis, a blast from the past, on the city’s east side—teaches dozens of sailors as young as 7 how to hoist sail and hit the wild blue of the river.
Whether the kids know it or not, they are part of a historic heritage of recreational boating clubs on the river, many of which are still thriving today. In fact, Bayview—host of the famous and international annual Port Huron to Mackinac Island sailing race--is celebrating its 90th birthday this year, while the Detroit Yacht Club across the river on Belle Isle checks in at a grand ol’ 137 years old and the nearby Detroit Rowing Club traces its roots back some 175 years.
Bayview Yacht Club
Bayview has been launching sailors from Detroit’s east side since 1915, when it began a little downriver from its current site near Connor Road, just south of where Lake St. Clair spills into the river.
The club is gearing up for its 81st race to Mackinac Island. The event begins on Saturday, July 23 and is expected to draw about 280 yachts from around the globe. Many of the club’s members feel that Bayview has almost been forgotten in its hometown, despite its prominence in the international sailing community.
“We have a huge tradition and nobody knows about it,” Maggie Sullivan’s dad, Brian Sullivan of Grosse Pointe Farms, says of the club and the city, in general.
“Detroit is an arm of the sea. We could, if we ever won one, have an America’s Cup here. We have water traffic that people don’t have an idea exists.”
Like other yacht clubs, Bayview mixes socializing with sailing. The clubhouse has a fine dining room, and many members join for the restaurant, bar, scenic views and camaraderie rather than the boat slips and yacht racing.
But sailing is the club’s mainstay.
Almost every Thursday throughout the summer, the same idyllic scene plays out behind the clubhouse: Members gather on the lawn and deck facing the river to sip a cold beverage and watch other members race, speeding their sailboats toward Windmill Point and Lake St. Clair and looping back up the river.
Kent Colpaert, who will head the Junior Sailing program next year, says that while people outside the sailing world may not think of Detroit when it comes to sailing, it’s not so among sailors.
“The reputation of Bayview Yacht Club is so strong among other yacht clubs. We have a huge reputation,” Colpaert says.
In addition to the Mackinac race, the club is hosting several events this summer, including a women’s invitational race in August and a junior regatta earlier in July.
Colpeart, of Grosse Pointe Park, has two sons in the junior fleet. He says the young sailors are surprisingly capable on the water.
“When you are out there at the club at lunch and all these kids are racing at the seawall, it’s amazing. You go, `They are just little kids! How do they do that?’”
Bayview is committed to getting as many kids involved in sailing as possible, Colpaert says. The junior sailors needn’t own their own boat or necessarily have parents who are club members to participate. The club also is offering a two-week course this year to bring in kids who can’t commit to the longer course.
The club recognizes that kids are its future, Colpaert says.
“Like many clubs, our fleet of baby boomers is aging. We have to introduce this to the next generation,” he says.
Sullivan agrees. “The kids are the future of the club, and the future of yachting on the Detroit River, because if you cannot support the sport, then you are running up stream.”
For more on Bayview’s activities visit www.byc.com
Detroit Yacht Club
Down the river from Bayview, another young crew is carrying on the east side sailing tradition. Junior sailing is a big part of the Detroit Yacht Club’s summer activities, says the club’s membership director, Rosemary Tokatlian.
This year at the Belle Isle club about 45 kids are participating in a six-week course with the more experienced kids sailing Flying Juniors and 470s. Beginners learn on tiny Optimists boasts featuring squared off bows.
“They’re like bathtubs with sails,” Tokatlian says.
The club also features a racing fleet and sailing lessons for adults and a handful of off-the-dock races for members.
The club was founded in 1868 in a little shed just off Jefferson Avenue at McDougall. Its current location has become somewhat of a social and wedding-reception hotspot, hosting 184 nuptials last year in the sprawling 1920s clubhouse designed by architect George Mason. Under the Spanish-tiled roof, the club boasts a wealth of Pewabic tiles, a huge fireplace, a three-story ballroom, an indoor pool and a workout room. Outside, there are tennis courts, another pool and a patio dining area.
Tokatlian says two-thirds of the more than 1,000 members are not necessarily sailors. “They just want to be part of the program, to be part of the river,” Tokatlian says. Hanging out at the pool in view of the river with a cold frothy drink, family activities and reasonable membership rates are also draws.
Still, with its trophy room packed with silver and bronze cups and plaques, it’s obvious that sailing and water sports remain strong at the Detroit Yacht Club.
The historic home of the Gold Cup Hydroplane Races, which have brought thunder to the river since 1921, the club sponsors its own boat, “Miss DYC.”
The club has 380 boat slips, docking everything from small motorboats to enormous 72-foot yachts. In the summer, many members are full-time club residents, living out on their boats, Tokatlian says.
“I think people are surprised in general when they come to the Detroit Yacht Club,” Tokatlian says. Some people get confused when they see the dilapidated docks of the nearby former clubhouse of the Detroit Boat Club—said to be the first yacht club in America, while the DYC is said to be the third. “They see that, but that’s not us,” she says.
For more information, visit www.dyc.com.
Detroit Rowing
Those old Detroit Boat Club docks may have fallen to disrepair since the organization left the historic site in 1996, but there is still boating life in the old Belle Isle structure.
“It looks empty, but it isn’t,” says rower Diane Van Buren Jones, a Detroit resident.
In fact, at the crack dawn, five mornings a week in the summer and fall, members of the Detroit Rowing crew set forth from the old building just underneath the bridge, hauling their huge, 60-foot-long boats to the water.
“You get the most spectacular view of the sunrise,” Jones says.
The Friends of Detroit Rowing has roots that date back to the 1830s. Members of the crew compete in races around the Midwest, and hold classes for adults and teen-age children. They even offer a free summer program for city teens.
Jones says there’s nothing like the feeling of rowing on the river, and she’s excited to share it with people new to the sport.
"It's just the closest thing to flying," she says.
For more information on rowing on the Detroit River, visit www.detroitrowing.net.
All photographs copyright Dave Krieger
Photos as they appear in order:
Maggie Sullivan
Jackson Krieger
In front of Bayview Yacht Club
Peacock Alley - DYC
Miss DYC
Detroit River