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Springfield Yacht and Canoe Club (U.S.)

Massachusetts

image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 April 2014

Springfield Yacht and Canoe Club

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Springfield Yacht and Canoe Club

The Springfield Yacht and Canoe Club is a member-owned boating club, that provides its membership with access to the Connecticut River. I was unable to find the club's burgee on their website (www.sycc.ws). I did find an image at a commercial index with outdated information, whose owners apparently found it somewhere along with the club's history page: www.sailingnetworks.com/organisation/view/6140. Since the image they showed had the unlikely feature of a white oval charged with an asymmetrical star, I assumed the real burgee was longer than they showed it, and had a white disk.

I made it a 1:2 white triangular blue field charged with a white cross with arms a quarter of the length of the hoist in width, and its centre half the length of the hoist away from the hoist. Centred on that a white disk with a radius of a quarter of the length of the hoist, bearing a fitting five-pointed red star, one point pointing up. I've found no information on the burgee, however, so I don't know what its official specifications are, nor when it was designed or adopted.

According to the club's history page, the club started out in 1850 in Springfield, Massachusetts as the Springfield Canoe Association. After some time, yacht owners associated with the association started a separate club, whose name is not mentioned. In 1884 the two merged under one association, but each still with their own commodore. As with other clubs, their membership dwindled after the First World War, which was a reason why in 1929 the two finally merged into a single Springfield Yacht and Canoe Club. After the club relocated to Agawam in 1935, its membership began to grow again. In 1964, in a similar situation, the club added a second location, for larger boats, at Chester, Connecticut. Since then, the membership has grown to the set maximum of 150. Without a Springfield location, the SYCC nevertheless continues as a Springfield club for both rowing and sailing, and as a member-owned club it's still maintained by its members.

Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 April 2014

image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 April 2014

Since the club is a merger of two clubs, there must have been two names at one point, and there may have been two burgees. I've now found www.pinterest.com/pin/109704940893594379/, borrowed from a no longer existing eBay offer of a "Vintage Springfield Yacht Canoe Club car badge excellent condition", that does show two burgees. One is similar to the burgee as I drew it, but with a cross with narrower arms, the disk larger, and a star with one point under 45°, the other the same but without cross, and the disk not quite as large. Two related burgees could well have been the burgees of the two clubs, regardless of whether the stars actually were tilted or whether that's just done for the composition of the artwork.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 27 April 2014