Escanaba Yacht Club looks to expand club, interest in sailing

The Escanaba Yacht Club is trying to change their image. They say, many people think of a yacht clubs as place exclusively for the rich and the elite. Club members are trying to make the sport of sailing accessible to everyone in the community.

"You do not have to be a member to come down. You're welcome to come down and hop on a boat and go for sail," said Commodore Dave Anthony.

And that's exactly what members of the Escanaba Yacht Club are hoping you'll do. There are numerous opportunities throughout the summer to come down and go for a sail so that's just what TV6 did by heading down to the harbor for the last race night in June.

The yacht club was founded in 1934 and races have been taking place at the club almost since the beginning. Every race night, a different course is decided on and the boats are divided up and into classes and everyone heads out onto the bay.

The night TV6 went out, we had the pleasure of being aboard Moonshadow with the Anthony family.

John Anthony, who decided on that night's race parameters, said that racing is fun and competitive at the same time.

"You get two people out there, it just become's kind of natural to go out there and race," said Vice Commodore John Anthony. "No, when we say racing, it truly is competitive, but it's only as competitive as you want to be."

The races usually last for couple of hours and involve the boats making multiple loops around preset points in the bay. The race season begins in June then takes July off with the next races taking place in August.

If you really want to get involved you might consider joining the club and there is one thing that might surprise you.

"You don't have to have a boat. You don't need to know anything about boating. We just want to have people that enjoy the lake to come on down and join us," said Dave Anthony.

Now if you're not quite ready to join the club, but you don't to wait until August to get a chance to go out on the bay, then there is an event on July 14 that's just for you.

"We have a great event called 'Come Sail Away' in which we invite the community to come down, and we arrange for them to go out on a sailboat ride," said John Anthony.

TV6 would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that the Moonshadow did win it's event for the evening, but we can guarantee that had absolutely nothing to do with the it's guest crew member.

I did ask the Vice Commodore what the big prize at the end of the year was.

"I think the big prize in this is not just winning. The biggest prize in this is just being out there," said John Anthony.

That seems like the best prize of all.

For more information on the club, visit the websites in the Related Links section of this story.