Kingston Yacht Club Archives Its Sailing Legacy
July 21, 2022
The Kingston Yacht Club (KYC) celebrated its 125th anniversary in the summer of 2021, in all the conventional ways COVID-19 protocols would permit, as well as one imaginative and progressive way that will serve its members and visitors for years to come.
Over the last century plus, KYC has experienced a rich history of members as well as a rich history hosting prestigious national, provincial and local regattas, all of which have been proudly displayed, extolling the exploits of its sailing members.
As more races were won and members added, these older achievements and information were tucked away for posterity’s sake. And herein lay the challenge.
Based on the premise that members join clubs to share experiences, and to appreciate being recognized for our participation and achievements, was there a way to bring this history to life so it could be presented at the stroke of a key, instantly displayed for everyone to see? Imagine the ability to show past KYC sailing victories, or to celebrate previous club members’ achievements and participation?
Enter globalPodia.com, a Canadian software developer experienced in the complicated programming of relational databases. With customizations by their programming team together with the thankless task of entering all the relevant data into the program by some clutch KYC members, the idea became a reality.
Kingston Yacht Club’s remarkable history has come to life for all members and visitors to explore. Its colourful members, racing crews, fleet, trophies, awards, and special events are accessible with a click! KYC has reserved a space in the clubhouse bar for a computer screen that displays a looped slideshow of past and current members, club trophies, yachts and event winners with titles and descriptions. A search function is available to retrieve specific information directly.
Special thanks to KYC members Ken Martin, Bob Story and Matt White, with Ralph Shaw (on the monitor) who collected, edited and entered club information and photos into this digital library. With their help, 125 years of participants and winners came to life including:
• 1,881 KYC Members
• 139 Trophies (Ralph Shaw took all the trophy pictures!)
• 190 Boats, with 115 photographs
• 104 Events held
The late David Page (KYC Archivist for over tenyears, until his passing just a few years ago) contributed greatly to the gathering and organizing of much of the historic data for the project; and it was Past Commodore Paul Davis who planted the seed for the genesis of this project well over ten years ago.
The late Paul D. Phelan, founder of Wind Athletes Canada, was a major supporter in the publication of Canada’s Olympic Sailing Legacy, a book written by Hugh Drake, which chronicles the history of the Canadian Olympic Sailing Team from 1942 to 2008. Paul wanted to help bring our Canadian sailing community together by celebrating the achievements of some of its brightest stars. He was skeptical of the value of a paper book to achieve this goal. He believed that putting the information about our sailing Olympians online in a searchable format was the way forward. Paul recognized the value of storing this important information in a database as the key to making it useful and relevant to future generations.
John Curtis, president of Wind Athletes, chose globalPodia based on Paul’s vision, convinced that globalPodia was the tool to achieve this goal.
