HISTORY

The history of Princeton Sailing begins in 1928, the year the Princeton University Yacht Club was founded. That year, a ''Big Three Regatta'' in eight-meter yachts initiated intercollegiate racing and also provided an auspicious beginning for the Princeton Sailing Team, which was skippered to victory by Arthur Knapp, Jr. '28. Intercollegiate competition was firmly established in 1930 with the McMillan Cup (donated by William McMillan '28), which Princeton has won seven times—more than any other competitor.

With the passage of time, the yachts have become boats and the regattas more numerous. Princeton has continued to field successful teams, winning the National Intercollegiate Dinghy Championship three times. With the advent of coeducation, the sailing team expanded its membership to include women. The women's team has been notably successful, winning the National Women's Intercollegiate Championship three out of the first four years of its existence. In 1976, the facilities of the Yacht Club were enhanced by the construction of the Lockwood Pirie '27 Boathouse on Lake Carnegie, made possible by the generosity of alumni and other Friends of Princeton Sailing.

Adapted from Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).

The current Sailing Team, now a club sport at Princeton, maintains a fleet of twelve FJ's purchased in 2009 with alumni support. Since the mid-1990s, the team has held practices and home regattas at Raritan Bay in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, using the facilities of Raritan Yacht Club. The boathouse on Carnegie remains the team’s on-campus headquarters, and the site of winter storage and fall and spring barbeques. The team practices three times a week and races nearly every weekend in the fall and the spring. More information about Sailing at Princeton can be found here. For the most recent news, results and pictures from the team, go here [google site].

To learn more about Princeton’s participation in collegiate sailing, visit this page of the website of the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association.

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