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

but also the seventy-fifth anniversary of its very first International Snipe Midwinters Championship. In 1978, Clearwater Yacht Club added another regatta to its small boat, one-design schedule. Under the direction of race organizers John and Sue Bankston, the Clark Mills youth regatta was held in conjunction with the second annual Kahlua Cup in order to honor the thirtieth anniversary of the design of the Optimist (aka Clearwater) Pram (forerunner of the International Optimist Dinghy) and Clark Mills—the man who designed it. Talk to any long-time Clearwater resident and you’ll hear Clark was a colorful character who was a bit rough around the edges and had a huge heart—especially when it came to boaters and kids. Ask wooden boat enthusiasts around the country and they’ll tell you (in the words of CYC Past Commodore Don Cochran, Jr.) Clark Mills “built boats so tight that there’s no caulking in them,” and that he had little use for fiberglass. He is said to have opined, in fact, that: “plastic is good for only one thing and that’s toothbrush handles.” Talk to long-time Snipe sailors and they’ll tell you if you “put a good skipper

in a Clark Mills boat it’ll win every time.” Talk to kids around the world and they’ll tell you Clark Mills is their hero. A delegation of young sailors from Spain once visited CYC just to see the “Clark Mills Trophy” and to soak up the “vibes” of the town in which he lived. Ask former CYC Fleet Surgeon Steve Morgan and his wife Vicki who bought, and still live in, Clark’s house on Clearwater Bay and they’ll tell you he was a kind-hearted eccentric whose life was boats. His house was wallpapered with boat plans and designs and the house and yard were filled with old boat parts (here’s to the patience of Mrs. Mills and the vision of Steve and Vicki). Talk to any of the hundreds of folks who stopped by the Clark Mills Boat Works for a chat and you’ll hear he had a wicked wit, could tell a mean tale, and was a fine and faithful friend. Like many a Florida kid, Clark started his boat building career by gathering whatever materials he could scrounge, putting them together in his father’s garage, and dragging the product down to the bay to see if it would float. He honed his skills during World War II when he worked first in the Philadelphia Navy Yard and later in the Panama Canal Zone. During this experience, he made friends with folks who had their own small boatyards

Notice of Race for the second Clark Mills Regatta, 1979. CYC Archives.

Chapter 7: Small Sailboat Racing at CYC 77