History of Community Sailing

Sailing Widens Its Net In a Quiet Harbor By James Lomuscio • Aug. 27, 1995

WHITE mansions border the quiet harbor at Southport, evoking a prosperous seafaring past. The harbor, home to the Pequot Yacht Club and expensive boats whose owners have virtual lifetime mooring rights, is one of the most scenic on Long Island Sound. But it is also considered one of the most exclusive. And therein lay a problem for the Town of Fairfield, in whose borders it lies. If the town wanted to continue to receive Federal financing for dredging, it had to increase public access. "The Federal Government thought that this was a private, blue-blood harbor," said Robert Stephan, a Fairfield resident, as he and his family prepared for an evening sail. About four years ago, Clark DuBois, a former resident of Fairfield and a member of the Pequot Yacht Club, tried to soften that image of exclusivity by proposing a concept not unfamiliar to the boating world: community sailing. For a fee comparable to that of Y.M.C.A. membership, people who could not afford boats or who did not want the bother of ownership could sail out of the same harbor as all those expensive yachts.

Read Entire Article