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

dropped back to one dollar” (Ransom and Tracy, 1961:19). The price of food continues to be a source of controversy at the club. Results of the study conducted for the Long Term Planning Committee suggest, for example, that while most members are quite satisfied with the quality of the food and service, the price is more problematic. Some members feel the club charges too much while others feel it charges too little (Green, 2008). Food has also played an important role in CYC’s

Dockside dining at the Bayway Clubhouse (2010). CYC Archives.

92 The First Hundred Years: Clearwater Yacht Club, 1911-2011 After CYC lost its perpetual lease on the Mandalay site, the courageous few who tried desperately to hold the club together continued to meet (and eat) at the “Downtown Station” every Tuesday night while working diligently to increase membership and find a new home for the club (Gamblin & Gamblin, 1976). In 1977, after the opening of the new building, among the first tasks of the newly formed CYC Gulls was to raise money to purchase such essential culinary items as cookware, chafing dishes, silverware, china, and picnic tables so members could get back to the business of dining. In 1979, the Gulls produced a cookbook entitled First Mate Cookbook . In 2000, the Gulls and Bow Chasers teamed up to produce CYC’s second cookbook Ship to Shore: Dinner and More ; and in 2010, Centennial Committee co-chair Terri Roberts, with assistance from Stacey Roberts, Anne Unger, Mitzie France, Judy Widger, Pat Dowling, and CYC Office Manager Lois Hines, produced a third cookbook Culinary Creations: Celebrating Clearwater Yacht Club’s 100 th Anniversary . From fish and grits to lavish banquets and gala candlelight dinner dances, CYC has had a long love affair with food. The tradition continues with the outstanding food served up by CYC General Manager Tom Brusini and his staff. relationships with other area yacht clubs. In 1935, after the original “Little Clubhouse” edifice had been replaced by a larger structure on the Mandalay site (known as the Mandalay Clubhouse), CYC “…entertained members of the Tampa Yacht and Country Club at a dance, the first such affair staged in the new clubhouse, a gala occasion underwritten by the club at a cost (according to the minutes) of $10.00” (Ransom and Tracy, 1961: 13). Nearly forty years later in 1972, one of the very last events held in the Mandalay Clubhouse was also a multi-club dinner that was given to honor the twenty fifth anniversary of the Coral Ridge Yacht Club (Gamblin and Gamblin, 1976). I suspect it cost the club a bit more than $10.00, but is reported to have been fabulously successful.