Bensonhurst Yacht Club - Brooklyn, New York 1904

Beautifully engraved certificate from the Bensonhurst Yacht Club issued in 1904. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the Bensonhurst Yacht Club's name and logo. This item has been hand signed by the Club's Commodere, A. C. Bellows Treasurer, W. W. W. Roberts and Secretary, and is over 107 years old.


Certificate Vignette



As reported in Boating Magazine in 1906

THE BENSONHURST YACHT CLUB

Devoted to Small Boat Racing on Gravesend Bay

W. W. W. ROBERTS

Secretary B. Y. C.

THE renewed interest and unusual activity shown in yacht racing for the past three seasons on Gravesend Bay is a matter that should be highly gratifying to lovers of the cleanest of all sports. There is no place that affords better opportunities for all types of racing yachts than the lower bay—a beautiful harbor with a well protected anchorage for boats of any draught—an excellent inside triangular course and unlimited outside courses leaves but little to be desired. Tt was hoped that when the Atlantic Yacht Club moved to Sea Gate and erected their beautiful home, a great revival of interest would occur, but in spite of the many efforts put forth by the Sea Gate Club the racing men continued to go up the Sound and as a consequence there was but little doing in the lower bay.

It was at about this time that a number of Corinthians held a meeting and formed the Bensonhurst Yacht Club, believing that a club devoting its attention to small boat racing and eliminating the shore features of many clubs would eventually succeed in arousing the necessary enthusiasm to bring the active racing men of New York to Gravesend Bay. The first step taken by this newly-formed club was to secure quarters at the Marine Yacht Basin, which was at that time just nearing completion and arrangements made for the erection of a club house on the end of the Basin pier and almost directly opposite the Atlantic Yacht Club. Application was made and the club admitted to membership in the Yacht Racing Association of Gravesend Bay, and for three seasons has been a conspicuous figure in that organization participating in its events and winning the principal championships, in addition to inaugurating an open Fall Handicap, open to all clubs in the bay, the initial race bringing out the largest entry list of any race previously held in the bay. This race has become an annual fixture and is looked upon as one of the season's gala events.

In June, 1905, the Bensonhurst Yacht Club took possession of its new club house which was designed and built purely to meet the requirements of a live yacht racing club, and it is extremely doubtful if there is another house in the east better adapted to the wants of a Corinthian yachtsman. It would indeed tax one's imagination to think out a more ideal location. 1,600 feet from shore, with water on all sides and a constantly changing panorama showing almost every type of craft from the mighty ocean greyhounds to the tiny canoe, the lover of things nautical has little to wish for. The advantages gained in having an up-to-date yacht basin in which the club floats are moored and in which racing boats may lay or be hauled up on the ways, is a most desirable feature and one that cannot but appeal to any racing man. In 1904, Commodore A. C. Bellows presented a cup, known as the Bensonhurst Perpetual Challenge Cup. for Class Q boats, and it is freely admitted that to this fact is in a great measure due the sucess of this splendid type of boat; the Ojigwan having been built by G. E. Reiners, of the Brooklyn Yacht Club, purposely to lift this cup, which was successfully defended by More Trouble. Several races for this cup have been sailed, and finally the New York Canoe Club, with Ogeemah, also enrolled in the Bensonhurst Club, won the prize in September of 1905. The Bensonhurst club, however, has issued a challenge and will attempt to recover the cup in June of this year.