Unusual Yacht Clubs of the World - Aspen Yacht Club

by Will Grant, Aspen Daily News/Sail-World on 25 Jul 2009 Aspen is known for lots of snow, and for its skiing. It's definitely not known for its sailing. However, the Aspen Yacht Club is not a joke. It did start as a joke, and people often think it’s a joke, but it’s not. It’s an actual yacht club, complete with yachts, docks, skippers, logbooks and membership fees.

But that doesn’t mean it’s your typical yacht club, and it certainly qualifies as one of the world's most unusual yacht clubs.

“We have no electricity, no running water, no communications, no sanitation,” said Bob Potillo, commodore of the Aspen Yacht Club, referring to the small clubhouse with its couple of simple tables and maps on the wall. “It’s kind of a backwoods yacht club. And we like it that way.”

Recently the yacht club hosted its annual regatta and celebrated the 40th anniversary of the race. The yacht club was founded a year or so before the first regatta and each year hosts sailors from as far away as Texas and Arizona who come to race on Ruedi Reservoir. 48 boats raced this year, which is nearly 40 percent more than the 35 boats that raced last year.

The races began Saturday morning and a skippers’ meeting was the first order of business. After that, it was just another day of racing at the Aspen Yacht Club: Clear blue skies, mild temperatures, changing winds to keep the sailors busy, and plenty of mayhem on deck and in the water.

John Macdonald, who was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, was run out of Australia when he was 26 and has been sailing all his life, is a member of the yacht club. He feels that the combination of the people and the place make the Aspen Yacht Club unique.

“We’re in a bloody nice spot here,” he said. “And we’ve got a good bunch of sailors out here.”

John Bruegger became a member of the yacht club in 1974 and agrees with Macdonald.

“The camaraderie is a big part of the club,” Bruegger said. “I take my family out there, and we spend several weekends a year on the lake. We sleep on the boat, looking up at the stars.”

The yacht club members are a cohesive group and, for the most part, only half-serious about yachting, Bruegger said. Each year the club gives out the Toilet Seat Award to whichever member is guilty of the most absurd or absent-minded mishap. Last year, the award went to a member who lost his trailer in the lake.

“For whatever reason, when he was backing down the ramp, the trailer came unhooked and rolled into the lake,” Bruegger said. “I think someone with scuba gear eventually went down and hooked a rope to it so they could drag it out. That kind of stuff’s always happening.”

History of a yacht club:

Commodore Potillo said the character of the yacht club has remained consistent over the years and has always been light-hearted. When Fritz Benedict founded the club, it was a joke.

“Before 1968, about the time [Ruedi Reservoir] dam was being finished, they had an Aspen Yacht Club, but it was a spoof,” Potillo said. “It was really a response to the Aspen State Teachers College.”

Aspen during the 1960s, with its dormitories and raucous parties, resembled a college campus without a college. So the Aspen State Teachers College was formed and the problem of no college was solved. Formation of the Aspen Yacht Club satisfied a similar need: Aspenites living luxuriously couldn’t suffer summer weekends without yachting.

Benedict established the yacht club on his ranch on Ruedi Reservoir, and the club occupies the same property today. It maintains an access easement with the current owners of the property and has a special-use permit with the U.S. Forest Service to use the reservoir. The club sits in Benedict Bay.

The yacht club today, however, is a little different than it was in its early years. For one thing, the boats are bigger.

“Early on, it was primarily small boats,” Potillo said, “but that’s cold water in Ruedi and people got tired of turning over. So now there are a lot more bigger boats, like 22-footers, that tend not to tip over.”

The cold water makes swimming in Ruedi attractive on only the warmest days, and the unpredictable mountain winds can make sailing difficult. Gusty winds often blow without warning, requiring sailors to be attentive at all times, Potillo said.

“You always have to be looking for the change in the water,” he said. “The wind can really come piping up and cause some trouble.”

The yacht club’s 40th annual regatta continued for the entire weekend to Sunday afternoon.

Not the most unusual yacht club in the world, but it comes close....

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