Preface

    In 1992, GYA Commodore Basil Kennedy and others recognized that the Gulf Yachting Association and its member clubs, owned or had custodial responsibility or a number of valuable perpetual trophies, but virtually no accountability procedure to insure their protection. Therefore, he urged the Board of Directors to create a Trophy Committee and appointed Past GYA Commodore Henry G. Chapman to chair that committee. It has been said that committees are oftentimes created with little cause or direction, but the work of the Trophy Committee over the last eight years has been a success story without equal.

    The committee found what many suspected: trophies were in disrepair; many were not current in their engraving; some, literally, were lost; and, many rarely showed up at the venue at which they were to be awarded. In short, there was virtually no accountability program, which is a prerequisite for any more sophisticated system of documentation and preservation. The Trophy Committee implemented such an accountability program in 1995, and the procedure, itself, is relatively simple. The winning skipper or club of a perpetual trophy which travels from venue to venue must sign an accountability form holding the winner responsible for the care of the trophy, its engraving, and its return to the appropriate venue the following year. While simple in its essence, the procedure carries far-reaching benefits for the future protection of these intrinsically valuable trophies.

    The accountability procedure, however, could not correct overnight the myriad problems associated with the GYA's perpetual trophies. The Trophy Committee set about on a program of research and documentation that involved countless hours and many individuals -- none moreso than Chairman Chapman and committee member/secretary Mug Cole. Many people were asked to consult their personal records to determine missing winners or locate missing deeds of gift. Hours of research were conducted in the GYA Archives housed at the University of West Florida. New deeds of gift were drafted where none existed or were inadequate at best. Custodial responsibility was assigned or clarified based on the deeds of gift. The committee urged donors to allow the trophies to continue to travel, when some were leaning the other way for prior obvious reasons. Carrying cases were made (and are still being made) and in some cases donated to the GYA to insure the trophies' protection. Records pertaining to individual trophies were updated as far as humanly possible. Trophies were photographed and scale drawings made to enable their reproduction, or, at least, insure for posterity permanent documentary evidence of their appearance. Where needed, trophies were repaired as funds became available.

    The foregoing represents merely the highlights of the outstanding work of the Trophy Committee. Suffice it to say that much was done behind the scenes and with little fanfare to create a living historical record of these -- the GYA's most coveted assets.

    What follows is a volume so complete as to represent in and of itself a history of the Gulf Yachting Association and a partial retelling of the events and individuals making up that history. It can be said that history is two-faceted. It is both the collective memories of the men and women who played a prominent role in its creation, as well as the tangible remnants of that past. which, unlike memory, is physical and hence indisputable. The perpetual trophies contained herein are just that  -- the tangible remnants of the history of the GYA -- that tell us who we are and where we have been. They assure us that the past is never really dead, it is merely past. They assure us, further, that a physical link will always exist between generations of sailors now gone and those yet born -- those who will someday be the stewards of our history, just as we are today
 
 

                                                                                Robert J. Bailey
                                                                                May 15, 2000