The First Hundred Years: Clearwater Yacht Club, 1911-2011

C an Y d C th ’ e s GD r a ea rk t e R st e H cov o e u r r y The year was 1972 and CYC was about to enter her “Darkest Hour.” Despite a tremendous surge of growth that brought the population of Pinellas County to over fifty thousand (Dunn, 1974; Pinellas County Planning Department, 2008), CYC’s membership had been steadily declining from its peak of a closed membership of five hundred in the 1960s (Ransom and Tracy, 1961). In an interview in 2008, CYC Trustee James Eaton remembered: “… for many years, the Club operated as if it were ‘fat, dumb and happy.’ CYC was one of the few social centers of Clearwater ... People wanted to belong ... it was ‘the’ place to be ... money was not a problem, and people didn’t concern themselves with where the money would come from… Then things began to fall apart; people began to find other things to do and places to go other than the Club. The money pot went down hill ... this required the membership to pay an assessment (people didn’t like that) and the membership dwindled.” The club made concerted efforts to liven up the place and attract new members, but nothing seemed able to stem the flow. The combined costs of Chapter 4 43