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Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club (U.S.)

Massachusetts

image by Miles Li, 5 August 2022

Description of the flag

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Description of the flag

What do you need to run a youth sailing club. Plenty of youth willing to have fun sailing. A few slightly older youth to help them get the hang of it. Some parents to finance dues, like boats etc, and maybe set up a safety organisation. But if your peninsula lies on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, that's more for the parents' sake. That's all what's needed. Parents don't have to be part of the club's organisation. Youth can sail a boat as 8-year-olds. Surely they can run a club by the time they are 20. And the Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club is there to prove it. No members over 24, and no problems they can't handle, except when grown-ups from other clubs see lions and bears on the road.

The year was 1906 and the founding mothers were 15 children, of which three were boys. They were going to create yacht club in Cotuit, Massachusetts, and indeed they did. They sailed a more-or-less one design of Mosquito class boats, and they did so for years until the Optimist Pram was adopted for teaching the smaller sailors. The members over time also introduced some other classes. What they did not do, however, was change the ages of the members. By the time they were 24, they were ready to play with the grown-ups, and it was time for them to leave.

Stemming from 1906, they have had a centennial jubilee in 2006. The image of that can still be seen on the Internet, and I borrowed a copy. It shows a burgee: Blue with a red saltire edged white.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 5 August 2022