My 10 seconds of glory at the New York Yacht Club

So, in June of 2023, we took a trip to New York City for a vacation. 

We had been there once before as a family, and Aimee and I had been there separately many times before thanks to layovers and overnight stays on our many different international travels.

I never knew anything at all really about the New York Yacht Club until I watched the Netflix documentary about the famous America's Cup battle between the US and Australia. (see video clip in previous post)

I thoroughly enjoyed the Netflix production so right before our trip I did a quick search to see if daily tours were given of the NYYC.

Ohhh..... how naive I am.

The NYYC gives tours..... once a month! And the tour only lasts about 15 minutes. So it is basically get the heathens in and get the heathens out as quick as you can.

Anyway, I said to myself that I would be satisfied with just seeing the building from the outside so once we were in New York I found a day I could steal a little time for myself and off I headed to 44th street.

It didn't take long and before I knew it I was standing in front of this amazing building. For the most part it was a quiet street with not a lot of foot or car traffic and I was able to get some good photos and take a few minutes to enjoy the experience.

After those few minutes I noticed here and there a couple of people walking into the club but really only one gentleman was nicely dressed, the other two or three guys were just in shorts and a t-shirt.

I said to myself, "That's odd. This is supposed to be a fine establishment. What the heck?"

So I made the decision to investigate, by walking in the front door!

And that I did, but I was quickly asked "May I help you?" by a well dressed man standing behind the front desk. 

I said to him that I was just wondering if I could take a couple of pictures and he responded that I could but only of the staircase. 

I thanked him, took just two photos, and was out in about 10 seconds. But that is all I needed, it was my 10 seconds of glory.

At least now if I am in an awkward conversation with someone and need something to say I can always pull out, "Have you ever been inside the New York Yacht Club?"

 

Untold: The Race of the Century - Official Trailer - Netflix

 

I read Pirate Hunters!

I'm still here, don't write me off!

It has just been a busy start to the year and I haven't been blogging at all really, but I still exist. And I just finished an awesome book that I would recommend to any and all pirate buffs.

I posted back in 2024 a link to Amazon for this book, 

see post here

and I started reading it at the beginning of the year. And boy am I glad I did, what a fun book to read. Well, maybe not all fun, I was pretty stressed out while reading it as I urged on these divers and shipwreck lovers in their quest to find the Golden Fleece. It isn't as easy as following an X marked on a map, it cost almost a fortune just to maintain equipment, and included trips to New York and Spain to visit libraries with maritime records dating back to the 1600's. 

The Golden Fleece was a pirate ship captained by Joseph Bannister, a pirate I had never heard of until now, which went down in the shallows off the coast of the Dominican Republic in 1686. 

Anyway, not to give any spoilers let me just end it with saying if you are looking for an enjoyable read about some treasure obsessed adventurers this is a good one. 

The Pirate's Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd

(from Amazon)

"[A] striking, thoroughly researched depiction of just how much persistence and inventiveness it took for a woman in Colonial America to retain security and dignity over the course of her life." —Christian Science Monitor

Few know that Captain Kidd, one of the most notorious pirates to ever prowl the seas, had an accomplice, a behind-the-scenes player who enabled his plundering and helped him outpace his enemies. That accomplice was his wife, Sarah Kidd, whose extraordinary life is a lesson in reinvention and resourcefulness. Twice widowed by twenty-one and a successful New York merchant in her own right, Sarah secretly aided and abetted her husband, fighting alongside him against his accusers. Marshaling in newly discovered primary source documents, historian and journalist Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos reconstructs Sarah’s extraordinary life, uncovering a rare example of the kind of life that pirate wives lived during the Golden Age of Piracy. This landmark work in women’s history weaves together the personal and the epic in a sweeping story of romance and adventure.

About the author

Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos is a historian, journalist and author of THE PIRATE'S WIFE: THE REMARKABLE TRUE STORY OF SARAH KIDD (Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins) and THE PIRATE NEXT DOOR: THE UNTOLD STORY OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PIRATES' WIVES, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES (Carolina Academic Press). She has published over 40 articles in newspapers and magazines. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. As a regular contributor to The New York Times Syndicate’s “Lifebeat” column her stories were published both nationally and internationally. She writes on a variety of subjects, including maritime history, business, science, health, fitness, education, museums, parenting, philanthropy, and lifestyles and trends. 

A former Legislative aide to a U.S. Congressman, she holds a Doctor of Liberal Studies degree and a Master of Liberal Studies degree from Georgetown University. She also holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from The George Washington University. During her studies at Georgetown University she focused her research and writing on issues concerning women, families and communities with a special focus on pirates of the eighteenth century.

She first became interested in pirates while writing an article in 2002 for The New York Times “Museums” Special Section about the Whydah Pirate Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts. For the last fifteen years she has conducted extensive original research on pirates and their wives in archives in London, Washington, New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. She developed a more complete and nuanced history of piracy, and discovered that the lives of pirates, while indeed colorful, were often quite different from those of their literary and cinematic counterparts. 

link to Amazon

Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal

(from Amazon.com)

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious “pirate” outlaws ever, but his legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Having captivated imaginations for more than three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, troubling questions remain. Was he really a criminal or is the truth more inconvenient: that he was a buccaneer’s worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?

In Captain Kidd, his ninth-great-grandson, bestselling author Samuel Marquis, reveals the real story. Kidd was an English American privateer and leading New York husband and father. The King of England himself dubbed Kidd “trusty and well-beloved,” and some historians describe him as a “worthy, honest-hearted, steadfast, much -enduring sailor” who was the “victim of a deliberate travesty of justice.” With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard, or any other sea rover at the turn of the seventeenth century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain?

Marquis’ biography recreates Kidd’s perilous world of explosive naval warfare and the daring integrity he exemplified as a pirate hunter, as well as the political scandal that entangled Kidd in British–American history, rocking the New World and the Old, and threatening England’s valuable trade with India.

Captain Kidd is both thrilling and tragic. Behind the legend is a real man woven into the tapestry of early America, rendering him a unique colonial hero and scapegoat whose life story was fascinating, exciting, bizarre, and heartrending.

link to Amazon

About the author

The ninth-great-grandson of legendary privateer Captain William Kidd, Samuel Marquis, M.S., P.G., is a professional hydrogeologist, expert witness, and bestselling, award-winning author of twelve American non-fiction-history, historical-fiction, and suspense books, covering primarily the period from colonial America through WWII. His American history and historical fiction books have been #1 Denver Post bestsellers and received multiple national book awards (Publishers Weekly Starred Review, Kirkus and Foreword Reviews Book of the Year, American Book Fest and USA Best Book, Readers’ Favorite, Beverly Hills, Independent Publisher, Colorado Book Awards). His historical titles have garnered glowing reviews from bestselling authors, colonial American history and maritime historians, U.S. military veterans, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and Foreword Reviews