Everyone put their oar in
By Barbara Veneri, Standard-Times correspondent
 
Book collectors, this one's for you!
If you haven't already seen it, run down to your local bookseller or library and check out "The New Bedford Yacht Club -- A History" by Llewellyn Howland III. Published in May in conjunction with the 125th anniversary celebration of the New Bedford Yacht Club, the book is written not just as a history of a boat club, but also as a portrait of sailing on Buzzards Bay and the larger life of New Bedford and the surrounding communities.
"Over the past 150 to 200 years," said author Howland, "New Bedford has had an extraordinary history … and the members of the yacht club were right in the thick of it."
Mr. Howland, 64, is the grandson of Llewellyn Howland, author of the classic "So' West and By West of Cape Cod." He came to write the history of the NBYC by accident.
"I got a call from John Douhan (one of the NBYC committee members who was a driving force behind publication of the book) looking for a quote from a poem for a funeral," said Mr. Howland. They got into a conversation, and Howland found himself interested enough to want to be involved.
At first, he said, "I had no idea of doing the book myself." But, "it became obvious to me that I wanted to do it."
Although he has written many long essays for Wooden Boat magazine, among others, co-authored a yachting history and authored a book-sized biography of two yacht designers, Howland is primarily an antiquarian book dealer, publisher and editor. In his lifetime, he has edited more than 450 books and has been involved in publishing the works of Everett Allen, Norman Fortier, and his uncle Waldo Howland, among local authors.
"The way it was set up," said Mr. Howland, "I saw a fairly short text." He felt he would be writing an essay that would accompany a "picture book" about the history of the yacht club, from its first regatta in June 1877 to the present day. As he got into it, however, that essay took on a life of its own.
The idea of a short text was based, noted Mr. Howland, "on the assumption that there was going to be very little in the way of documentary evidence." He noted that the NBYC archives themselves held very little in the way of a history of the club before 1975. He also told Rev. Douhan and the other members of the NBYC committee responsible for the book that he would write the text on the condition that "the club would do the research for me."
As he soon discovered, much research had already been accomplished, and the committee was more than willing to do the rest.
Former Standard-Times columnist and photographer Gail Scott had gathered a wealth of material in preparation for a book proposed by the club that was never written. Rev. Douhan spent hundreds of hours poring over old files from the Standard-Times and other publications, laboriously copying down the names of skippers, boat names, race results and other yacht club minutiae.
The author himself spent hours at the New Bedford Free Public Library and the Whaling Museum, saying he cannot stress enough "how wonderful" members of the staffs of both institutions were to help him.
"They all went out of their way," he said.
As a New Bedford area native who was raised in South Dartmouth (and now lives in Boston), Mr. Howland found himself "genuinely curious and interested in the early 20th century history of New Bedford."
"I wanted to know who all the players were," he said. At this point in his research, he became aware that he couldn't do justice to the central role the yacht club played in the history of the city with a brief essay.
"I knew I couldn't do a short book," he said. So how did he produce more than 150,000 words to accompany hundreds of drawings, photographs and illustrations?
"I found I had to go one page, one day and one year at a time," Mr. Howland said, explaining the organization of the book by year.
The publication of a book commemorating the club's 125th anniversary has been a project of members of the club for the past three-and-a-half years, although the idea bounced around for many years before that, according to NBYC history committee chair Warren Hathaway.
"There have been two or three attempts to write a history of the club," Mr. Hathaway said, "but, for one reason or another, it hasn't been completed."
Under three commodores, Arthur Burke, himself, and current NBYC Commodore Peter Kavanagh, the project took hold.
And, the secret to the success of the book, according to Mr. Hathaway, is, in two words, "Llewellyn Howland."
"He grew up in Dartmouth, he has written maritime histories, his prose is fabulous," said Mr. Hathaway.
"The way he chose to write the book not only about the New Bedford Yacht Club but (about) the evolution of the whole New Bedford area in the late 1800s and early 1900s," said Mr. Hathaway, "is a mirror of the this area throughout all these years."
"New Bedford's essence comes through clearly," because the NBYC is, he said, "a common man's club and always has been. There is a wide range of members, a lot of blue-collar members, who have been stalwarts and active members."
Mr. Howland calls some of the people portrayed in the history "amusing and tragic figures" noting that the New Bedford Yacht Club has produced "an interesting bunch of characters" through the years.
One of these "characters," R. Eugene Ashley, is portrayed as the man who really ran the city when his father Charles was mayor in the early 1900s in a caricature reprinted from "Just for Fun." Another early photograph shows William H. Hand Jr., NBYC commodore from 1928 to 1930, who also designed both sail and power boats in New Bedford beginning in 1898. There are portraits of the mighty and powerful as well as the laborers who crafted the boats scattered throughout the book, along with diagrams and drawings of yacht designs, caricatures, cartoons and reprinted menus, programs, and artists' conceptions from the 1800s to the present day.
To publish the book, Mr. Hathaway, Rev. Douhan and others from the NBYC committee held a patrons' drive among members of the yacht club, raising more than $40,000 up front -- "on faith," noted Mr. Hathaway.
"What a show of faith," he said, adding "that inspired us to do the job."
Relying on old newspaper clippings, the files, prints, painting, drawings and photographs of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society (the Whaling Museum), the footwork of Rev. Douhan, Judy Lund, and others, the committee amassed the necessary material for Mr. Howland to write the book.
"It was a huge team effort," said Mr. Hathaway.
You can find "The New Bedford Yacht Club -- A History," priced at $59.95, at The Navigator in Padanaram, The Bookstall in Marion, and Baker Books, in North Dartmouth, among other bookstores locally, as well as at the New Bedford Yacht Club.
The book was printed at Reynolds-DeWalt in New Bedford, whose owner Peter DeWalt was "a gem," said Mr. Hathaway. "He helped us every step of the way."
Mr. Hathaway also praised Ben Baker who aided distribution of the book. There were 2,000 copies printed, including 100 "patron's copies," with a cover done in white with a color logo.
Maritime authors and sailors such as John Rousmaniere and Gary Jobson have praised the book.
"Every yacht club in America should follow the New Bedford Yacht Club's example of high standards and record their history as well" as is done in this book, noted Mr. Jobson. Mr. Rousmaniere calls the book "a true triumph in every way."
This story appeared on Page B1 of The Standard-Times on July 1, 2002.
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