Beneteau First 36.7 North American Championships
September 1-13

Bayview Yacht Club held its first Bayview / Mackinac Race in 1925, with only 12 canvas-sailed wooden boats competing. Much of the fleet never made it to the finish line off Mackinac Island.

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The Metropolitan

“In 1915, a small yacht club took shape in a three-story tin boathouse on Motor Boat Lane,” said Commodore Hanson Bratton. “Now, in its Centennial year, Bayview Yacht Club has over 1,000 members, including world-renowned racers and leaders in the sport, and a 5,000 square foot ‘Shrine of Nautical Culture’ as its clubhouse on Clairpointe Street.”

Bayview sits on the edge of the Detroit River at the mouth of Lake St. Clair, and commands a sweeping panorama of islands, the cityscape of Detroit, and the shore of nearby Canada. Legendary for the sailing scene in Michigan, an acclaimed junior sailing program, and regattas – both one-off and re-occurring, like the Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race – that add to its national stature, drawing devoted members and participants.

“I’ve been involved with seven America’s Cup teams, and locally with four Canada’s Cup teams, and I’ve been fortunate to win at least one of each of those,” says member Stu Argo, Jr.. “Through the junior sailing program here, and then in bigger boats on Saturday, and in Mackinac races, you learn how to do things right.”

In many ways, Argo’s thoughts reflect the fortitude of the club’s founders and followers in preserving the club’s basic tenants: Development of sailors; preservation of the finest traditions of the sea; continuance of that finer class of sportsmanship, which seems born largely of the sea and sea-minded; and development of sailing vessels, which add fresh glory to the most daring and romantic of all sports.

Bayview Yacht Club

Bayview Yacht Club won the Canada’s Cup – a cross-border match racing challenge first held in 1896 – four times (1972, 1975, 1988 and 1994), and is unmatched in being either the challenger or defender over eight consecutive Canada’s Cup competitions.

It was one of the first yacht clubs to create a women’s invitational regatta, and now its Detroit Cup is a revered Category 2 Match Racing event that hosts champion women sailors from around the world.

Fred Kreger, who has been a BYC member since 1964 says, “I race two to three times a week, and I’m at the club five days a week in the summertime. If there’s a race I do it.” Now in his 90s, Kreger has won the Bayview Mackinac Race 15-18 times, and recalled sailing with Henry Burkard’s famously successful Meteor, a 32 footer, for 27 years. “The first 10 years we sailed, we came back with a flag (for first, second or third) from each of the Macs.”

Impressively, Kreger has a total of 62 Bayview Mackinac Races and 46 Chicago Mackinac Races under his sailing belt, making him one of only 32 “Double Old Goats” (completing 25 or more of each of the races) and, one of 13 “Grand Rams” (completing 50 or more Bayview Macs).

Bayview Yacht Club sails in the Beneteau First 36.7 North American Championships, September 1-13. For information visit www.byc.com