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Outdoors

Yacht club sails with an unpretentious air

By PAUL SWIDER
Published March 8, 2006

GULFPORT - The term "yacht club" usually conjures an image of plush carpets, overstuffed leather furniture and similar people sitting in it, clouds of pipe smoke and sailing stories told by those who haven't wet their feet in decades. The Boca Ciega Yacht Club is the antithesis of that stereotype.

"We're a working-man's yacht club," said Shirley MacVean, a 22-year member and former director of the sailing school for which the club is known around the state. Everyone at the club is a former director of this or that because the entire nonprofit venture has been run by volunteers since its inception some 50 years ago.

Legend has it the club started in the 1940s when "a bunch of guys who wanted a home for sailing" dropped homemade docks into what is now Vinoy Basin, said Craig Smith, BCYC's vice commodore.

St. Petersburg relented to the squatters and thus was born the Sunshine City Boat Club, which rested there until being displaced by the arrival of the Bounty in 1965. The character of the club never changed, though, from its enthusiastic early days to the family atmosphere now in its block building at the end of Tifton Drive S.

"We're still just a bunch of guys who love to sail," Smith said. And girls and kids of all ages, with the club's 175 family memberships and roughly 400 individuals who call it a second home. Members are mostly from the immediate area but some come from as far away as Orlando and Crystal River because this is a T-shirt-and-shorts club for people who simply sail.

"We're known throughout the state for taking 30 or 40 boats and going off someplace," said Smith of the club's monthly overnight excursions. "Nobody does that."

Members don't need to have a boat to sail. Not only are boat-owning members willing to carry extra crew on trips, the club owns 20 boats and lets members use them, once they've completed sailing school and shown their competence. The school, which starts its spring session tonight, is geared toward the novice, but all different levels can learn something.

"I had owned a boat and done quite a bit of racing when I joined the club," MacVean said. "I took the class and found myself saying: "Oh, wow, so that's why that happens."'

Smith said the purpose of the school is twofold: "So you don't kill me on the water and as a constant stream of club members."

"But it's also to share a love of sailing," said club commodore Joel Heyne, a member since 1976.

Students in the $125 five-week class are granted three-month club membership as well, which they often extend under the club's inexpensive plan of $30 a month. A few take the class and discover they don't like sailing, but, Heyne said, that's a cheap lesson compared to the cost of just renting a boat for a few hours.

As much as the sailing that brings them together, the atmosphere is most attractive for BCYC members. The club's initials could easily stand for "blue collar yacht club" as members sit on a screened porch and look out on the yacht basin they built themselves. One member walks in, cooler in hand, sits down and opens a cold one. The bar is open.

"There's no pretension here," Smith said.

"We have doctors and lawyers here," Heyne added, "but they belong here because they like to be called Joe instead of Mr."

Members emphasize their group is an extended family. MacVean talks of how members helped her husband - whom she married at the club - attend medical therapy when she had to go to work.

Another member whose boat was stolen and trashed bought another boat after the membership took up a collection and handed her a check.

"When somebody stumbles," Smith said, "you got 17 hands there to catch you.

"We're really a well-hidden little jewel. We're so glad to be a part of this."

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.

[Last modified March 8, 2006, 01:42:19]