A Little History About DMYC
As the local boat builder and long time member of the Detroit Model Yacht Club, I have a unique view of the classes we sail. Over the years many classes have been sailed here with varying degrees of success. The DMYC was founded in 1979 on two classes, the Marblehead and the EC-12. These two classes sailed here for many years. In 1984 we held the EC-12 National Championship. It was a great regatta with 18 boats participating. In 1985 the club was introduced to the One Meter. Within two years, more O-M’s were built and sailing then the other two classes combined. O-M’s were easy to build and hit a price point that people were willing to pay. Their popularity continued strong and in 1987 the DMYC held the O-M Nationals. The One Meter was the introductory boat for most new members at that time. It was easier to transport then the Marblehead or the EC-12 and less expensive.
The underlying problem with increasing the membership in those years was the ability of the club to build new boats for people that either did not have the ability or the desire to build one for themselves. Most of the time we needed to find a used boat to fit their needs. Another problem, and a bigger one, were those new members that thought they could build their own boat and could not. These new members got frustrated fast and would soon drop out of the club. The people who purchased used boats put a strain on the few members that were willing to build boats every year. All this added up to a bottleneck in increasing the membership. In the first 12 years of this organization we were only able to keep up with attrition.
They say change is good. I say correct change is good. The club as a whole had more changes in the 90’s then ever before. It also had good people running the club. We recognized the need for an introductory boat for new members. A kit that required little or no input from the membership was needed.
In 1990 we built two Soling One Meters and presented them to the club as a solution to the problem. The Soling was rejected for several reasons, mostly the need for member input to make sure the boats were built correctly. In 1991 the club was given four CR-914’s as a promotion for the new class. We were to sail these boats in a race-off and send the winner to San Diego for the Mini America’s Cup. That winter it was proposed to the membership that we adopt the CR-914 as an entry-level kit boat. It required no member input to build and met the One-Design requirements. We felt we needed 6 to 8 current members to buy boats to give it a start. The proposal failed. None of the current members were willing to buy a kit. They thought it was to close to a One Meter in size and the cost was too high.
Just after this the America’s Cup class was introduced in 1993. About that same time the EC-12 class was abandoned due to lack of interest. The club now supported three classes once again. This put more pressure on the few members that in the past were building 1 to 2 boats a year in the Marblehead or the One Meter classes. Because of this, both the M and O-M lost boats in the early 90’s. Mostly because we were not replacing boats owned by members that decided to keep their boats in the basement and not sail. I do not fault the members that decided to sail in the AC class. All of them were sailing boats in other fleets. They did not reduce the number of boats sailing directly, they did affect the other classes indirectly because they were the people building new boats and selling their old ones to new members.
Nothing further was done until the winter of 1995/6. That year the club organized the largest construction project ever for the DMYC. We decided to build 10 to 15 One Meters all at once. The project was a great success in the beginning. We started building the boats and increased the membership to the highest level ever. When it came down to spring and it was time to finish the boats and start sailing only four of the initial 14 ever hit the water. We had failed once more. Frustration was now setting in. We needed to grow the club if we were going to survive. New members were coming in but existing members were leaving just as fast. Most of the new members from the past One Meter project were now gone. On top of all that, the club was aging very rapidly and younger people were not joining. In 1997 the youngest member was in his upper 30’s. We had missed an entire generation of sailors. In the winter of 1998/99 the core group of members got together once more to discuss a starter kit for the club. The proposal was to revisit the Soling One Meter. This was brought on by two factors. First, it was a large class in the AMYA. Second, there was a large fleet right across the river in Windsor. We had one of the Windsor members bring a kit over for our review and we discussed how we were going to build the boats. At the same time, the Victoria was starting to gain popularity in the AMYA. We purchased a Victoria kit. At the next meeting we adopted the Victoria and sold 15 boats to existing members. It was easy to build with no member input and hit the price point that we needed.
Since the adoption of the Victoria, the membership has grown to new levels never seen in the DMYC. Shortly after the Victoria class was incorporated the club added the International One Meter with great success. At this point we had Marblehead, Victoria, US1M, IOM, 1.7M which turned out to be too may options so after a few years the club has settled down to racing on a weekly basis one or all of the following classes: IOM, Soling, Marblehead, and the new Dragon Force class. The Victoria class had lost interest in our club and has been replaced by the strict one design Dragon Force class, which is the fastest growing class in the world.
We believe with our current classes mix we have boats that can be purchased for $250.00 ready to race (the Dragon Force) all the way the rather expensive IOM boats that cost as much as $3500.00. The Soling class is the largest in the USA and can be built for or purchased ready to sail for about $500.00, the Marblehead is the biggest boat in our club at 50 inches long and can be had for anywhere from $500.00 to several thousand dollars. With that group of boats we feel there is a class for virtually every level of skill, pocket book and commitment. Information for each class is available on this site.
Our members are all willing to help with new sailors either picking a boat, learning how to build, sail, or assemble kits and we welcome visitors to all our events.