The Founding Story of Port Credit Yacht Club

Port Credit Yacht Club exists because of a storm. In 1934, a small lifeboat broke loose from a passing freighter out on Lake Ontario and washed ashore at the east end of Port Credit's Cumberland Drive. A young man named Ted Schofield found her sitting in the sand, rigged her with a mast, a centerboard, a rudder, and a sail, and gave her a name: Arrowhead. That homemade 16-foot dinghy is the reason any of this exists.

The Boat That Started Port Credit Yacht Club

Arrowhead caught the attention of the whole neighbourhood. Soon a small group of young men were racing their own boats and mooring them in the harbour on cans and tires, meeting up at Jack Morch's boathouse on Cumberland Drive just to talk sailing. Bert Bradley, George Cousins and his sons Charlie and Howard, Ned Green, Jack Macmillan, Jack Morch, Percy Oke, and Ted Schofield himself were part of that early group, a handful of neighbours with boats, still years away from a clubhouse of their own.

MEMBERSHIP
Ninety years later, that same spirit of neighbours building something together is still what membership here feels like. See what is included at every level on our Membership and Fees page, or email us to set up a tour. pcyc.net/membership-fees

Twenty-Eight Founding Members and One Homemade Clubhouse

By the spring of 1936, that informal group of boathouse friends decided to make it official. They would form a yacht club and build a clubhouse of their own. The first meeting was held on July 28, 1936. Jack Morch was elected Commodore, and membership dues were set at five dollars for a Senior Member, two dollars for an Associate, and fifty cents for a Junior. Twenty-eight founding members signed on, with a fleet of eight boats between them.

There was no budget for a contractor. The clubhouse, a modest 35 by 25 foot building on the east bank of the Credit River, was entirely built by member volunteers, financed in part by two lifetime memberships that Jack Morch and Norm Pearce purchased for one hundred dollars each. Whatever PCYC was going to become, the founders were going to build it themselves, board by board.

Opening Day at Port Credit Yacht Club, 1936

The new clubhouse officially opened on Saturday, August 22, 1936, and the club's burgee was raised for the very first time that day. An Evening Telegram reporter covering the celebration captured the day better than we ever could: “Entertainment, following the raising of the Club’s Burgee, included a pillow fight with competitors astride a pole... Half a dozen were entered into the canoe race without paddles and Cousins experienced a spectacular upset to the accompaniment of much applause and laughter... Percy Oke, to show how it should be done, walked breezily to the end of the pole and nonchalantly dived in.” Dancing, refreshments, and a birthday cake decorated with ships and a lighthouse closed out the night, cut by Commodore Jack Morch himself.

JOIN US
Membership here has always meant more than a dock slip. If a club built by neighbours, for neighbours, sounds like your kind of place, start your membership application, or email us and we will walk you through it. pcyc.net/apply-online

Write the Next Chapter of Port Credit Yacht Club

Ted Schofield simply pulled a broken lifeboat out of the sand one afternoon and decided to fix her up. Ninety years later, that one small decision is still the reason members gather on this same stretch of waterfront every season, in a clubhouse their founders built with their own hands. We would love for you to be part of whatever comes next.

EXPLORE MEMBERSHIP
Come see what a club built one small decision at a time still feels like, ninety years on. Explore membership options, or email us to book a tour. pcyc.net/why-pcyc