About Us

We are AMYA Club #88 located in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.

If you are interested in radio/controlled model sailboats, this is the place to visit. This website will tell you when and where we sail. Look in the Special Events and Calendar section for sailing information. The Links Section will give you more information about sailing in general and sailing model sailboats. We sail four different models locally, the Victoria, US1M, Marblehead and AC’s. Information about the four different classes of model sailboats can be found by clicking on each class, left side of this page.
We currently race on Mondays and Thursdays, starting in April and running into October. Wednesdays are set-up for afternoon sailing for those that want a more laid-back kind of activity. Rules, tactics, strategy, tuning, construction and rigging are regularly discussed.
We are very proud of our participation both in local events and National events. DMYC has hosted the AC Nationals, Victoria Nationals, and US1M Nationals along with a number of Region 4 Championships, including Victorias and IOM's. Camp Dearborn is the venue of choice providing the participants with “walk-along” racing and facilities to camp for those coming from “out of town”.
Any Monday, Wednesday or Thursday club members will be happy to hand you their transmitter so you can get the feel for what it is like to sail remotely. Even veteran big-boat skippers are surprised by the differences.

DELIA PARK POND

DELIA PARK POND PHOTO

Joeseph Delia Park is on 18 Mile Rd. between Dequindre and Ryan

TO JOIN US JUST DOWNLOAD A 2007 DMYC MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION
AND SEND IT TO KENN DENYS

KENN'S HOUSE 40362 LANGTON STERLING HTS. 48310

A Little History About DMYC

By:Wick Smith

As the local boat builder and long time member of the Detroit Model Yacht Club, I have a unique view of the classes we sail. Over the years many classes have been sailed here with varying degrees of success. The DMYC was founded in 1979 on two classes, the Marblehead and the EC-12. These two classes sailed here for many years. In 1984 we held the EC-12 National Championship. It was a great regatta with 18 boats participating. In 1985 the club was introduced to the One Meter. Within two years, more O-M's were built and sailing then the other two classes combined. O-M's were easy to build and hit a price point that people were willing to pay. Their popularity continued strong and in 1987 the DMYC held the O-M Nationals. The One Meter was the introductory boat for most new members at that time. It was easier to transport then the Marblehead or the EC-12 and less expensive.
The underlying problem with increasing the membership in those years was the ability of the club to build new boats for people that either did not have the ability or the desire to build one for themselves. Most of the time we needed to find a used boat to fit their needs. Another problem, and a bigger one, were those new members that thought they could build their own boat and could not. These new members got frustrated fast and would soon drop out of the club. The people who purchased used boats put a strain on the few members that were willing to build boats every year. All this added up to a bottleneck in increasing the membership. In the first 12 years of this organization we were only able to keep up with attrition.
They say change is good. I say correct change is good. The club as a whole had more changes in the 90's then ever before. It also had good people running the club. We recognized the need for an introductory boat for new members. A kit that required little or no input from the membership was needed.
In 1990 we built two Soling One Meters and presented them to the club as a solution to the problem. The Soling was rejected for several reasons, mostly the need for member input to make sure the boats were built correctly. In 1991 the club was give four CR-914's as a promotion for the new class. We were to sail these boats in a race-off and send the winner to San Diego for the Mini America's Cup. That winter it was proposed to the membership that we adopt the CR-914 as an entry-level kit boat. It required no member input to build and met the One-Design requirements. We felt we needed 6 to 8 current members to buy boats to give it a start. The proposal failed. None of the current members were willing to buy a kit. They thought it was to close to a One Meter in size and the cost was too high.
Just after this the America's Cup class was introduced in 1993. About that same time the EC-12 class was abandoned due to lack of interest. The club now supported three classes once again. This put more pressure on the few members that in the past were building 1 to 2 boats a year in the Marblehead or the One Meter classes. Because of this, both the M and O-M lost boats in the early 90's. Mostly because we were not replacing boats owned by members that decided to keep their boats in the basement and not sail. I do not fault the members that decided to sail in the AC class. All of them were sailing boats in other fleets. They did not reduce the number of boats sailing directly, they did affect the other classes indirectly because they were the people building new boats and selling their old ones to new members.
Nothing further was done until the winter of 1995/6. That year the club organized the largest construction project ever for the DMYC. We decided to build 10 to 15 One Meters all at once. The project was a great success in the beginning. We started building the boats and increased the membership to the highest level ever. When it came down to spring and it was time to finish the boats and start sailing only four of the initial 14 ever hit the water. We had failed once more. Frustration was now setting in. We needed to grow the club if we were going to survive. New members were coming in but existing members were leaving just as fast. Most of the new members from the past One Meter project were now gone. On top of all that, the club was aging very rapidly and younger people were not joining. In 1997 the youngest member was in his upper 30's. We had missed an entire generation of sailors. In the winter of 1998/99 the core group of members got together once more to discuss a starter kit for the club. The proposal was to revisit the Soling One Meter. This was brought on by two factors. First, it was a large class in the AMYA. Second, there was a large fleet right across the river in Windsor. We had one of the Windsor members bring a kit over for our review and we discussed how we were going to build the boats. At the same time, the Victoria was starting to gain popularity in the AMYA. We purchased a Victoria kit. At the next meeting we adopted the Victoria and sold 15 boats to existing members. It was easy to build with no member input and hit the price point that we needed.
Since the adoption of the Victoria, the membership has grown to new levels never seen in the DMYC. The youngest member is 7 years old, and it is the largest One-Design class in Detroit with over 70 boats. Never in our wildest dreams did we see this coming. There are four big-boat sail clubs in the Detroit area that have also started the Victoria Class and we hope to hold the first team race in the spring of 2002. Our fall championship race for the Victoria class is called the “Penguin Regatta” which draws over 20 boats.
Other classes in the club have benefited from the introduction of a starter kit into the club. This gave new members a stepping-stone into the other classes. Combine that with the experience they gained by building a boat on their own, we now have members that require less help when building a new boat.