| Club History | |||||||||
| History of the South Jersey Model Yacht Club AMYA Club #390 Mike McGuckin’s wife, Mary, surprised Mike with a new RC Laser for Christmas in 2016. Mike was an experienced big boat and one design sailboat racer for many years at Ocean City Yacht Club. Mike thought it would be fun to keep it simple and get some quick and easy fun racing in on a Sunday morning before an Eagles game. A few buddies had RC Lasers so the simple solution was to invite them over, set some marks and get a few races off right in the lagoon behind the McGuckin house. If it got too cold, “bag it” literally! Put the RC Laser back in the blue carry bag and get inside for some Eagles football, Hot Chili and a cold beer by the fire.” Go Birds.” And so, it began as the South Harbor Yacht Club. We had no idea that Ocean City offseason frostbite sailing was about to turn into a year-round activity. Dave Branning, AMYA Regional Director and long-time RC Laser sailor, moved to Ocean City from Maryland in 2018. Dave helped us with some structure by creating an AMYA member club in 2019, scheduling weekly racing, upgrading our sail inventory as well as repairing our boats. We even found used boats and we fixed them up so we could get new skippers involved immediately. Our racing really took off after the pandemic hit when we held two club regattas wearing masks. One in late 2020 and New Years Day 2021 with prizes, champagne and beer. Our fleet is a true mix of seasoned and unseasoned sailors/boaters. We quickly learned that we enjoyed RC sailing recreationally for a variety of reasons, blending the appeal of sailing/racing and great camaraderie. Today, our club hosts an annual RC Laser regatta in the fall at the Beesleys Point Beach as well as supporting the annual Liberty RC Laser League of six regattas in the Mid-Atlantic area. |
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