Two Out of Three YCs Ain’t Bad
The Most Exclusive Yacht Clubs in America is the title of a year-old article that we only recently stumbled across. It was compiled by the mostly serious financial site insidermonkey.com. The degrees of exclusivity were based on the club’s rating in Platinum Clubs of America — "with added points for winners of the America’s Cup and the Resolute Cup."
The Resolute Cup? Although we’ve never heard of it, the monkeys inform us that the Resolute Cup is “sometimes called the unofficial club championship of America in yachting.” You learn something new every day, don’t you?
Normally we don’t pay much attention to articles claiming to list the best of anything. But this is different, because the monkeys are apparently experts at it. For example, they also have lists of things like the 10 Therapy Dog Breeds for Depression and Anxiety; 7 Best Smartphones for Parents and Senior Citizens in India; 20 Best English Karaoke Songs with Lyrics; 10 Best Places to Retire in Colombia; and 10 Best Bourbons for Under $100. Their list of ‘Best Lists’ goes on forever, so they’re obviously experts in this challenging field.
They couldn’t find any club more ‘Exclusive’ in the United States than the Royal Yacht Squadron in England, which went 198 years (until 2013) before they allowed a woman to join. On the ‘men-only’ grounds, they once denied entrance to the bloody Queen of England! Perhaps the RYS policy was more sexism than ‘exclusivity’.
For whatever reason, they came up with a list of the 11 Most Prestigious Yacht Clubs, not the normal 10 or 20 or 100. The list is as follows:
11. Southern Yacht Club, New Orleans, founded 1849.
10. Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, founded 1914.
9. Palm Beach Yacht Club. Palm Beach, Florida, founded 1890.
8. Chicago Yacht Club, Chicago, founded 1875.
7. Annapolis Yacht Club, Annapolis, Maryland, founded 1886.
6. Newport Harbor Yacht Club, Newport Beach, California, founded in 1916.
5. Carolina Yacht Club, Charleston, South Carolina, founded 1883.
4. San Diego Yacht Club, San Diego, founded 1886.
3. The San Francisco Yacht Club, Belvedere, founded 1869.
San Francisco YC is the oldest yachting club on the West Coast. The clubhouse was moved several times, until it finally settled in its current location — in Belvedere Cove — in 1926. The move split the membership and one group decided to form a new club, called St. Francis YC. Despite the controversy surrounding the relocation, it proved to be the right move, as Belvedere Cove is an excellent harbor and it allowed the club to create world-class amenities for its members and their guests. The clubhouse went through an extensive reconstruction in 2007, modernizing existing features and adding some new ones, in order to bring it up with the times.
2. St. Francis Yacht Club, San Francisco, founded 1927.
Formed by the dissatisfied members of the SFYC who opposed the move to Belvedere, the St. Francis Yacht Club quickly gained a reputation as a premier club, often ranking higher than their rivals at the San Francisco Yacht Club, much to their chagrin. It is generally considered the most prestigious yacht club on the Western coast. One of the reasons for its popularity is the club’s location near the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the most notable members include James David Zellerbach, Tom Blackaller, Pamela Healy and Roy Disney.
1. New York Yacht Club, New York, NY, founded 1844.
The top spot on our list of 11 most exclusive yacht clubs in America goes to the New York Yacht Club. It has about 3,000 members and the only way to become one of them is to be invited. New York Yacht Club is the essential part of the iconic America’s Cup, having won it 25 times. It is officially the longest winning streak in the history of sports. The cup itself is named after America, NYYC schooner which won the first cup ever held in 1851. Its rivalry with Britain’s Royal Yacht Squadron is one of the greatest in the history of the sport and certainly the greatest among yachting clubs of the world. New York Yacht Club is regularly listed among the top three best yachting clubs in the world.
If you disagree with this list — it’s full of hilarious factual blunders — take comfort in the fact that according to the monkeys, Say It Ain’t So by Weezer is the all-time best karaoke song.
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Furthermore, according to the most recent Platinum Clubs of America survey, a record number of club managers, presidents and owners came up with the following list of the Most Respected yacht clubs in America.
1. St. Francis Yacht Club
2. San Francisco Yacht Club
3. San Diego Yacht Club
4. Grosse Pointe Yacht Club
5. New York Yacht Club
In any event, the St. Francis and the San Francisco Yacht Clubs rate high no matter who makes the list. Should your club, or some other club, have made either of the lists? Let us know.