Yachting Club of America

Does anyone have experience with reciprocity from YCOA? I was wondering if it is worthwhile joining a club for this benefit. I live in FL, so same question for Florida Council of Yacht Clubs.

Florida council reciprocity works well with a free night however I have found that membership tends to restrict people to member clubs thus avoiding some commercial or municipally owned marinas that are often better located. Some of the best times I have had were at member owned clubs. IMO you don't save money belonging to a member owned club, you do it for the camaraderie.
There are clubs and there are clubs. Member owned clubs out of Florida tend to offer some degree of reciprocity to traveling club members with advance permission and a letter from the members club. Not all member owned clubs offer reciprocity. Some are very exclusive and guests allowed by invitation of members only.

Commercial "clubs" have their own rules but often will allow visitors if the have space for revenue reasons.
YCOA

I have wondered about the same thing. The idea of reciprocity would be "I'll let you visit my club, if you let me visit yours". It would seem one sided with a 'virtual club'. The virtual club members reap the benefits and extend little in regards to reciprocity n return.

I can see how a physical club with marina might not want to extend such reciprocity to a virtual club.

Shrew said:

I have wondered about the same thing. The idea of reciprocity would be "I'll let you visit my club, if you let me visit yours". It would seem one sided with a 'virtual club'. The virtual club members reap the benefits and extend little in regards to reciprocity n return.

I can see how a physical club with marina might not want to extend such reciprocity to a virtual club.

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Every region is different. Here in the Puget Sound area, reciprocity agreements are worked out between clubs individually. A club won't grant it to other clubs unless the other club has something to offer. There are a few clubs that don't have facilities but have worked out a deal with a local private marina where the club will pick up the moorage for one or two nights for a reciprocal club member. Sometimes the marina will bill the club directly or other times the reciprocal member has to ask or reimbursement from the club.

Personally, if my club asked me, I would recommend against granting reciprocity to the latter group.

reciprocity

White Lake Yacht Club offers reciprocity. (Whitehall, MI off Lake Michigan. A great spot.) My folks are members. That's about all I know. They are surprised at how many clubs are not really reciprocal.

We have occasionally received reciprocity with Florida clubs and a few elsewhere. However, we don't select marinas based on that. If they are otherwise equal we'll go to one that grants free docking but it's seldom that everything is equal. We docked at a yacht club last night and paid and it's a club with serious problems in all ways. Really no club, just docks, but nearly a third of the docks for sale and nearly a third for rent. It was built for the condo developments, but they greatly misjudged in thinking the condo owners would all want slips.

We've gotten reciprocity in places that had no agreements with anyone, who just happened to have space.

Google Mackinac Island Yacht Club. They have hundreds of members but no dock facilities. People join there because it's relatively inexpensive, comes with a membership card that will get you reciprocity at many clubs.

I researched this last year for our club. I only looked at what have been referred to here as "member-owned" clubs. Here is the state of affairs on the Chesapeake:

Most clubs on the Bay are members of the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Clubs Association (currently around 80 member clubs). These clubs informally give reciprocal privileges to each other.

Additionally, many clubs have specific club-to-club reciprocal agreements in place. These can be great deals--for example, $25 a night dockage.

So, if you're a member of a club on the Bay you likely have access to almost 100 other clubs and their facilities.

When searching for reciprocal privileges outside the Bay, clubs will typically grant privileges in one of three ways:

• Some clubs require a specific club-to-club agreement to be in-place.
• Some clubs will just ask for a membership card from your home club.
• Most clubs will ask for a membership card and look your club up in the Yachting Club of America book. The assumption here is that membership in YCOA proves you're a real club (though there are indeed some virtual ones that have made it in there).

Having your club listed in the YCOA is $500 per year. We were listed for a number of years, but found little value in it because most of our members don't leave the Bay.

My yacht club is a member of both Yachting Club of America (YCA) and the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Clubs Association. YCA publishes a book each year that list all of the member clubs and what reciprocal privileges they offer to other clubs. This information is also published on their website and your club is given an ID and password so it can be accessed by club members anywhere. Members of my club have made use of the Yachting Club of America all over the US. I personally have made good use of this privilege. Danderer's info is correct so it just depends on where you cruise. As another example, my club is located on Southern Chesapeake Bay and we've had members use the San Diego Yacht Club on occasion, so the system does work.

Paul M said:

My yacht club is a member of both Yachting Club of America (YCA) and the Chesapeake Bay Yacht Clubs Association. YCA publishes a book each year that list all of the member clubs and what reciprocal privileges they offer to other clubs. This information is also published on their website and your club is given an ID and password so it can be accessed by club members anywhere. Members of my club have made use of the Yachting Club of America all over the US. I personally have made good use of this privilege. Danderer's info is correct so it just depends on where you cruise. As another example, my club is located on Southern Chesapeake Bay and we've had members use the San Diego Yacht Club on occasion, so the system does work.

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The members using reciprocal privileges, which are they finding of these:

1. Free transient dockage for one or more days and access to facilities.
2. Discounted dockage and access to facilities.
3. Just access to the facilities.

BandB said:

The members using reciprocal privileges, which are they finding of these:

1. Free transient dockage for one or more days and access to facilities.
2. Discounted dockage and access to facilities.
3. Just access to the facilities.

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Mostly 2 or 3; sometimes 1. Local examples:

1. Going to Baltimore Yacht Club for their weekend-long Memorial Day bash. Free dockage to other clubs.

2. Staying at the Miles River Yacht Club when visiting St. Michaels. Lovely facility and $30 a night (because our club offers the same to their members).

3. Dinner on the deck of the Eastport Yacht Club when we're in Annapolis.

Slightly off-topic: Over 40 years ago my family were members of a small club in the midwest. Because of that we enjoyed a great Christmas-eve dinner at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. Still a fond memory.

Our club www.fairportyachtclub.ca is part of LOCCA which is Lake Ontario and few others. We welcome visitors from those clubs shown on the website and we will also entertain some loopers and long distance cruisers as long as their own Club website shows there is a good chance that one of our boats will be welcomed similarily.


LOCCA Clubs Reciprocal Repository | LOCCA


We have hosted boats from Britain, California and Florida over the years, usually by prearrangement. If you are coming our way email me, dockmaster@fairportyachtclub.ca as you can see I have some discretion in the yes and no dept.

The Other Gary said:

as you can see I have some discretion in the yes and no dept.

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I've found that true with most clubs if you approach correctly. Discounts or free dockage is nice, but all we really are after is to be allowed to dock at whatever they want to charge and to be allowed to use the club. It's typically how you present your request coupled with simply their available space. If you approach like you're demanding, I imagine issues, but if you approach as asking and letting them know it would be greatly appreciated, good chances. Also, if docking free, do you intend to spend money there.

BandB said:

I've found that true with most clubs if you approach correctly. Discounts or free dockage is nice, but all we really are after is to be allowed to dock at whatever they want to charge and to be allowed to use the club. It's typically how you present your request coupled with simply their available space. If you approach like you're demanding, I imagine issues, but if you approach as asking and letting them know it would be greatly appreciated, good chances. Also, if docking free, do you intend to spend money there.

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You've just hit the high point, if you're nice and pleasant with your approach odds are good you'll get in if they have room, you have to remember that the only thing that is in it for the club is if you spend money in their facility. Every club budgets a percentage of annual income from reciprocal revenue. Help them out and spend that "free night" in the clubhouse.

Our Club charter does not allow us to accept money from visitors. In the event we host someone who absolutely must help us out we point to the ever hungry beer fridge at the outer end party deck.

The Other Gary said:

Our Club charter does not allow us to accept money from visitors. In the event we host someone who absolutely must help us out we point to the ever hungry beer fridge at the outer end party deck.

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I'm assuming you don't have a restaurant then?

We don't even have any dry land except the seawall, This is a dockominium on 2 acres of deeded bay bottom with 56 owned slips plus 4 visitor slips. We have a long term lease on our washroom and shower facility and 3 really good restaurants within 200 yards. Our own club restaurant, if we built one, would never break even.
Having said that we are always getting visitors because of our location and how handy it is to amenities.


This is our social deck out at the end, the visitor in the background is a "long looper" from Newport CA doing the loop via the Panama Canal. As you can see it was a short walk to donate to the beer fridge.