Lady in Motion

Walking into a sailing club out of season can be very strange. Yachts and boats of all sizes on rusty metal carriages held up by wood, saturated with water and probably older than I.

There is always something making noise, no matter where I am. It could be the winches people are using to put their sailboats away for the season or the flapping of flags and masts on top of every yacht at the club.

The Bay of Quinte Yacht Club was started in 1875, according to official documents dated from October of that year. The BQYC was one of four founding members of LYRA, or Lake Yacht Racing Association, along with three other yacht clubs on Lake Ontario such as: The Oswego Yacht Club, Toronto Yacht Club and The Royal Canadian Yacht Club.

The Bay of Quinte Yacht Club racing regatta first sailed on August 12, 1885. Membership and activity at the yacht club was normal until the beginning of WW1, when money, resources, and manpower were devoted to the Great War.

Walking into the club I’m greeted warmly by Susan Smith, former commodore of the Bay of Quinte Yacht Club from 1990-91 and current club historian. She leads me to the club lounge to a tall, albeit small wooden table with an unlit candle on top. We both sit down. Looking around the lounge, I see a few artifacts from the club’s past. Racing pennants, old flags, antique wood, metal equipment and other remnants from times where who ever ruled the seas ruled the world.

What really caught my eye is the bar, stocked with maple brown and caramel bottles of rum and a large fridge caked with frost and jam packed with beer. It’s not the contents of the bar that catch my attention, but the bar itself which is half of an old boat.

What conquered the room was the long white boat with an oxblood top, used as a meeting place to serve drinks and to share stories of rough weather on Lake Ontario over coffee.

Smith turns to me after I enquire what the commodore of a yacht club actually does and gives me a stern look, eyes weathered but lively just like the boats all dry docked surrounding the clubhouse and lounge.

“Where the buck stops.” she laughs. “…Being a commodore has always been the domain of men” she adds.

She takes me outside to the grounds around the club, and we navigate between yachts when she takes me to the club yacht, it’s cherry red and white, or was in its prime, it’s since faded but still just as striking. Small dings and scratches from the rocks and obstacles littering the bay and the ever-persistent zebra mussels that are a growing problem in Lakes throughout Ontario.

Smith rubs her hand along the boat and peels some paint of the bottom and mutters under her breath.

“Zebra mussels,” she growls.

By Jon King.