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Bayonne Yacht Club (U.S.)

New Jersey

image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 16 June 2015

Bayonne Yacht Club
Bayonne City Yacht Club

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Description of the flag

According to the New York Times of 30 June 1868, the Bayonne Yacht Club was formed two years earlier, and according to the same paper of 24 July 1870, the Bayonne Yacht Club must have held its first annual regatta in 1867. This suggests the club was organised in 1866, after the season.

In 1872, the club was involved in a case of rather ungentlemanlike behaviour: The Bella, owned by BYC member and previous Commodore Nicholas Duryea, was racing the Meteor to buoy 5 off Sandy Hook. The Bella being behind, Duryea had her turn around buoy 4 instead and then head in, and since she so reached the finish line first, he claimed to have won the race. The Bayonne Yacht Club eventually expelled him from the club. (Not long afterwards, Duryea was shot dead by a business associate.)

CORPORATIONS OF NEW JERSEY, 1914, listing certificates to 31 December 1911, page 66, lists the Bayonne Yacht Club as being incorporated 29 September 1908.
www.njstatelib.org/slic_files/searchable_publications/corp/NJCORPn66.html

The Bayonne Yacht Club is listed in Lloyd's Register of American yachts, 1912, as organised and incorporated in 1908 which apparently is half correct. Its station is given as Foot of West 24th Street, Bayonne, N.J., and its home waters as the Newark Bay.

It's burgee is depicted as a circa 2:3 red triangle with a white hoistward chevron. This design is also found on an ink well that was auctioned by iGavel: bid.igavelauctions.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=2529397.

The club disbanded in 1914.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 16 May 2015

Bayonne City Yacht Club

image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 19 June 2015

According to "Bayonne old and new : the city of diversified industry", 1940, The Bayonne City Yacht Club was organised in January 1910, and had its station at Foot of West 27th Street, Bayonne. though they later moved to the former location of New Jersey Yacht Club: Foot of 30th Street, Bayonne. [You can't help but love such addresses. (-:]

Corporations of New Jersey, 1914, listing certificates to 31 December 1911, agrees with the 1910 address, and has 18 February 1910 as the date of incorporation.

Lloyd's Register of American Yachts, 1917, agrees that the club was organised and incorporated in 1910, and gives the later address, and list the home waters as Newark Bay.

So far - so good, but:
The Sun, 2 February 1893, mentions the Bayonne City Yacht Club applying for membership of the New York Yacht Racing Association, with later mentions of the club occurring in 1894, 1895, and 1896. I'm not sure how a yacht club gets mentioned more than a decade before it is created.

Lloyd's pictures the yacht club's burgee as a ca. 2:3 very dark blue triangle with a white circle bearing a spanning red five-pointed star.

MotorBoating of February 1919, listing for yacht and motor boat clubs which members joined the naval forces. lists five members of the BCYC. Apart from MotorBoating, who seemed to have had a tendency to list dead clubs, the last mention I found of the club was from 1917; I'm not sure that, if those five members made it home, they still had a club to come home to.

Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 19 June 2015