CLUB FOUNDING

A quartet of men of widely different character and temperament were responsible for the beginning of what was to become a prestigious sailing club… in fact, the world’s most famous, fully-recognized and widely-esteemed yacht club without a physical home. Without a club house or even a permanent land base, the Club must truly be considered a child of the spirit… the spirit of sailing. And the quartet of men in the beginning were men of unbounded spirit.

There was David Beauvais, the football and track star from Detroit’s Wayne State University. Strong and purposeful, Beauvais (a teacher who later was to be the chief track starter for the Big Ten) returned from World War II to be director of Grosse Pointe Park’s Waterfront Park (now called Windmill Pointe Park).

Another man was Franklin A. “Bud” Miller, a great affable man, always smiling, always willing. He was a manufacturers’ agent. Blessed with the salesman’s energy, Miller always was eager and adventurous.

Included in this vital nucleus was a quiet one, Ralph Dodge Johnson, first officer of the fledgling club, for it is his signature that appears as secretary of the first meeting. A doer by nature, Johnson’s soft, determined work- coupled with the strength of Beauvais – worked to effectuate the enthusiasm of Miller and the fourth man in the nucleus.

B. “Bud” Wellman, tall, handsome, almost raffish, matched Miller in gregariousness and exceeded him in adventurousness. Another salesman, and a liver of life in never less than its fullest, Wellman was entrepreneurial by nature, as a review of his amazing roller coaster life has barely suggested to those who know him well.

It was, then, four men- a strong one, a quiet one, and two delightful personalities who formed the water loving framework for the informal group of sailors that was to become the Grosse Pointe Sail Club.

Talked of for several years before, the club’s actual beginning dates from September 12, 1948, just downwind from World War II. On that date, exactly a dozen men (there were several beautiful girls there, too) dressed in the extremely casual but necessarily utilitarian garb favored by sailors the world over gathered on a beautiful Saturday under a massive Elm tree at the Waterfront Park at the foot of Alter Road in Grosse Pointe Park – a municipal facility at the junction of Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River.

The giant tree (some claim it was an Oak) is gone. Human memories are frail, indeed… but those who remember the day recall it with great feeling. Warmly sad and nostalic now, but light and joyous then, the mood was created by sailors.

For the record (a phrase to be used often in this tract), the twelve who officially attended this first meeting were William besides Beauvais, Miller, Johnson and Wellman Kuhn, Carl J. McPhail, Charles Ebner, James W. McCarthy, Robert L. Connelly, Frank G. Ebner, Warren Helle and William M. Walch. A few of these names were to disappear quickly from the club’s activities and records. However, five of them were fated to serve and labor with love as commodores. Sailboat enthusiasts to a man, they had been invited by the City of Grosse Pointe Park to form a sailing club to be based at the park. All kept their boats on the old wooden pier and were addicted to rigging their boats, sailing casually by another well or already sailing boat and commenting, “Race you to the St. Clair light and back.”

Within five years, the Club’s membership grew to over fifty. So many physicians were signed up in the 1954 to 1955 period that the club almost became known as “The Doctor’s Yacht Club.”