Yacht Club ‘at home’ for a century on Little Egg Harbor

“Beach Haven is home,” the theme that resonates around the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club’s centennial, could not have been more fitting than it was during the opening commissioning and celebration at the historic clubhouse on Saturday, June 23. The commemoration reunited 100 years of current and former clubhouse members, many who were present to reminisce about the good old days, as the sun went down over the twinkling waters of Barnegat Bay. But great fun and lasting friendships were not always easy to find 100 years ago.

Photo Courtesy of LEHYC

The earliest image in the LEHYC archive is 
of this sneakbox in 1913; a traditional waterfowl 
hunting boat, first designed in Southern Ocean 
County in the 19th century.

The passion for genuine camaraderie, and of course sailing, has always been the core foundation of the LEHYC. On July 13, 1912, a small group of Beach Haven Yacht Club members broke away from what was turning into more of a professional fishing club and less of a racing boat guild. The new group formed the LEHYC. The organization is now known across the country as a prestigious place to sail. It has twice been awarded U.S. Sailing’s esteemed St. Petersburg Trophy for supremacy in race management. The club continues to host many leading regattas, or sailing championships, including several at the national and international levels.

At the end of the summer in 1912, the LEHYC had more than 30 memberships – a total of about 70 individual affiliates. Over the next few years, membership grew and the club leaders decided they needed to obtain some waterfront property land. Purchased from one of the club’s founding members, the organization acquired a lot on Berkeley Avenue in Beach Haven. Members quickly built a rickety dock, where they held sailing and motorboat races. Meetings and parties were held at any one of the town’s largest local lodges, such as the Baldwin and Engleside hotels.

In 1916, four years after the club’s initial get together, members had a three-story clubhouse with a porch and balcony built on the acquired land in Beach Haven. Meetings and small parties were held on the third floor of the new building, while members lounged on the second floor, above the ground floor grill room and men’s locker room. Many of the club’s biggest events were still held at the Island’s largest hotels well into the 1930s.

By 1921, the club maintained the first of the organization’s four 25-foot, single-design sloops – a small, wooden sailboat with single mast – to accommodate the club’s influx of adult members. In 1923, the Skippers program was formed. Led by established sailors, the program taught young boys from ages 6 to 13 about the ways of the water and the art of sailing. A Skipperettes program for young girls came about in the late 1920s. After World War II, the two programs were united to form a co-ed youth program, renamed in 1990 as the Junior Sailing and Tennis Program. Junior sailors now learn and compete in Optimist, Laser and Club 420 dinghies.

“There was no activity specifically for the children until the Skippers program in 1923,” said LEHYC historian Doug Galloway. “I don’t know when they really got involved with actually sailing the boats because they also had some other activities. They swam, for example. The bay was probably horribly polluted, but they swam in it anyway. They had all sorts of crazy things. They’d get out with basically a boxing glove on a 10-foot stick and a canoe, and they’d try to stand up and knock the other guy down – canoe jousting, they called it. They’d take half a wooden barrel and try to paddle it in a paddling race.

“They learned how to sail, too,” explained Galloway. “Sailing was, I won’t say it was different; I will say the way you went about learning it was different. Now, you’ve got lesson plans and you teach specific skills, one after the other. In those days, it was basically, put you in a boat and see if you can go out and learn how to do it,” he added with a laugh.

Rapid expansion of the LEHYC took place from the 1940s through the 1960s. During that time, a Junior Sailing building was erected. It was later demolished and rebuilt in the 1980s.

Photo by Ryan Morrill
The yacht club, pictured in the 1940s.

A group of enthusiastic tennis members personally purchased the first few of the club’s six tennis courts, which the organization eventually bought from them. The last set of courts was procured later in the 1980s. Weekly tennis events now include men’s, women’s, children’s and parent-child tournaments.

The LEHYC also has an active private fishing club that competes locally and nationally. The fishermen share their catch with the club’s members during the summertime at the annual Fish Fry. Bocce, golf, exercise classes, art, bridge, a book club and a pre-sailing program for children ages 5 to 7 are also integral activities at the club. Special fun events include happy hours, cookouts, dinner-dances and tranquil sunset sails.

The club owns 3½ acres of land, extending along the harbor from Norwood Avenue to Pearl Street. The property includes 120 boat slips, open to members with motorboats and large sailboats that are unsuitable for lugging in and out of the water.

“(Members) pay the club an equivalent fee to what they would pay at a commercial marina,” said Galloway. “We deliberately keep (the price) just a little bit lower than a commercial marina because we don’t have the marina services; we don’t have a mechanic to go work on your boat. There are always a couple of kids who do boat cleaning, but that’s their own business. Generally, they’re member’s kids,” he added, motioning to a young man setting up for the night’s event, who used to work as a boat cleaner at the yacht club as a young boy.

The LEHYC now has about 670 family memberships, including 450 active memberships, for a grand total of nearly 1,800 people. Many of the club’s members live in the surrounding areas such as Philadelphia, New York and Delaware. A few live as far away as Boston and even San Diego.

Living far away from one another does not mean that the friendships formed within the club are any less true. As centennial events at the clubhouse begin, anyone can plainly see that the adoration between club members and for their seaside homes on the Island has endured well over the past 100 years.

“I think it’s remarkable that our family has gone through 100 years of generations, and we’re still associated with the organization,” said Dylan Herrmann, son of Rear Commodore “Bud” Herrmann. “A lot of the other families here are just like us; we’re not rare at all. There’s a lot of family tradition here.”

“We’re celebrating the club’s 100 years and supporting our dad,” added Bud Herrmann’s daughter, Sarah. “Everyone obviously loves it here because they stay friends across generations.”

Photo by Ryan Morrill

Commodore Edwin Cox III leads the centennial 
ceremony held dockside on Saturday, June 23. 

“I’m one of the real natives,” said Jay Cranmer, one of the club’s former commodores. “I was born and raised here. It’s great. My sons, John and Jeff, learned to sail here, too. It’s exactly what commodore (Edwin Cox III) said: It’s a family club with generations and generations of families.”

“For most of us, this is where we socialize,” said Galloway. “We’re a great gang of people who get along really well. There are always political things, but basically it’s a great group of families.”

Centennial events, open only to current and past generations of club members and their guests, will continue throughout the summer to include a three-day reunion weekend filled with fun events such as sailboat races, tennis matches, cocktail parties, dinner-dances and more. Sailing competition for 2012 includes the E-Scow Eastern Championship Aug. 2-4; the LEHYC Down Bay Regatta Aug. 9-12; and the 2012 USODA (Opti’s) Atlantic Coast Championship Oct. 6-7. For more information, visit lehyc.org online, or call 609-492-2529.

This article was published in The Beachcomber.