Our Honolulu
Yacht club unstung by adversity

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

This one is for people who don't get seasick. The Hawai'i Yacht Club turned 100 this month after a voyage of triumph, disaster and mosquito bites.

I didn't realize, until learning about this historic event, how much mosquitoes have to do with the royal sport of yachting. Therefore, an explanation is in order.

The Hawai'i Yacht Club was born in October 1901 in a remote wilderness called Pearl Harbor, then known mostly for sharks and mosquitoes. But there was lots of water to sail around in.

Getting there was another problem. Nobody knows for sure if the railroad had a branch running on the Pearl City peninsula to the yacht club where Prince Kuhio, Clarence W. MacFarlane and other pioneer Sunday sailors kept their boats. Or if you got there by carriage.

The yacht club held its first cruise and regatta on Oct. 26 and Oct. 27, with a lu'au and races on Oct. 29. Advertiser cartoonist Yardley had a field day depicting the scene.

One cartoon shows a yachtsman in a turtleneck sweater jauntily smoking a cigar. The next panel shows his knees getting weak. At the end, he is barfing over the rail.

Another drawing has a yacht under full sail towing a rowboat to the lu'au loaded with poi and shark bait. Then there was a cartoon of supplies for the regatta, including a case of mosquito repellent.

We can be certain that the yachtsmen themselves ignored these digs at their dignity. So did the editor. He listed the winner of every race as faithfully as society writers in those days described the costume of a bride and the blossoms in her bouquet.

And so yachting took its place in Our Honolulu as the sport of the elite.

Hawai'i Yacht Club went international in 1906 with the first Trans-Pacific Yacht Race. But it wasn't easy.

MacFarlane sailed his new boat, La Paloma, to San Francisco to launch the race. A few days after he arrived, the worst earthquake of the century, followed by the San Francisco fire, closed the harbor.

The La Paloma and two other boats sailed from San Pedro. Legend has it that the La Paloma went to Kaua'i by mistake, which was why she came in last. But this cannot be confirmed.

"Pearl Harbor was a great place to sail around in but not very convenient. For all their influence, the members couldn't find a place closer to town," explained yachting historian Ray Sweeney. "My guess is that the Hawai'i Yacht Club unraveled about 1920 to '22."

MacFarlane donated the historic burgee (club pennant) to the new (1930s) Honolulu Yacht Club at the mouth of the recently dredged Ala Wai. Member Sheldon Brady, 85, who still lives on his boat, remembers a shoreline of coconut palms, kiawe trees and beachcomber shacks.

In 1947 the Hawai'i Yacht Club was reborn in a merger; $5 initiation fee, $5 annual dues. Members helped build a clubhouse in 1958. So you can't accuse yachtsmen of being snobs now. It probably costs more to play golf.