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

David Strohauer, Pierce Brinkley, Robbie Kidd, John Anderson, Justice Anderson, Aubrey Peterson, Christine Calderbank, and Liz Horst. The group soon discovered in order for a youth sailing program to provide the best possible opportunity for its young sailors to excel, it needed to run regattas that would attract talented competitors against which its sailors could compete. Fairlie Brinkley (commodore 2002–2003) reactivated the Clark Mills Regatta (which had been deleted from the club’s schedule several years earlier) and organized the Clearwater Championships in order to

Clark Mills start, 2006. Photo by Amanda Fleming.

80 The First Hundred Years: Clearwater Yacht Club, 1911-2011 The board accepted the challenge and CYC was propelled into the experience of running a twenty-first century, world-class regatta. In looking back on this decision, Past Commodore David Billing wrote (in an article published in the club’s newsletter, the Compass , in April of 2004): “The yachting and youth sailing committees went to work. The goals were unambiguous; this regatta would be tailored to challenge the top international athletes, the race committee had to be prepared to run long hard races in any conditions that weren’t downright dangerous. The most qualified judges available would have to be out on the water and the performance of the accomplish this goal. These two regattas remain an important part of the club’s annual regatta schedule today. By the early 2000s, the Clearwater Youth Sailing Team was known around the state, country, and world for both its size and the quality of its young athletes. In 2000, when several youth sailors had moved up from Optis to larger one-design boats including Laser Radials and Laser Full-Rigs, CYC added another prestigious Midwinter regatta to her schedule. The club was selected by the International Laser Class Association as a potential site for the Laser Midwinters East —an International Sailing Federation Grade One regatta for today’s hottest classes of small racing sailboats. The decision to take on this large, complex, high stakes regatta was not made lightly. Cassie Featherston took the proposal to the Yachting Committee and the Board of Directors. In her proposal she stated: “We see Laser Midwinters East as a top notch training event. The courses and days should be long, we should race in conditions that a club might not, and qualified judges should be on the water enforcing rule 42 (propulsion), just as it would be at the World Championships.”