Down to the Charles

The Yacht Club is not very big as yacht clubs go, but its racing team, with a membership of 40, is one of the biggest in the country. Because it has a strictly limited time for sailing each week and because it must use borrowed boats, the Yacht club is the racing team.

All 40 members like to sail, even in chill winter winds. But things really are much more pleasant for sailors in the spring, just as they are much more pleasant for everyone in the spring. And for the racing team, the end of vacation marks the beginning of a new season. Today it meets MIT, and tomorrow, the team travels to Brown to compete for the Sharpe Trophy.

Although it is working on plans for a boathouse and 12 dinghies of its won, the Yacht Club must in the meantime depend on MIT facilities for its three afternoons of sailing each week. Like MIT its sailing is confined to a short length of river between the Harvard Bridge and the West Boston Bridge, and bordered by Memorial Drive, a low cost housing project, and a number of large neon signs.

With a new boathouse, the membership total will probably rise; but it is difficult to see how the quality of sailing can. In its last three intercollegiate meets, the Crimson has taken two firsts and a second.