Soon after arriving at UNH in 1936 my twin brother, Harold, and I became interested in the newly formed Yacht Club (now UNH Sailing Club). At the time about 20-25 members started collecting money to buy five boats. We ran raffles, sold candy, solicited friends and family and used many other means of collecting funds in order to buy sailboats.

The advisor of the club was Leon "Skip" Glover '23,'27G. He worked at the university's Extension Service and later received his doctorate at Iowa State. He ended up working for Shell Oil in California as an entomologist. He was also the advisor for the Sea Scout ship, the S.S. Gundalow, at Portsmouth.

The following year, 1937, the club purchased five 15-foot sloops made by the Cape Cod Boat Co. They were sloop rigged with centerboards, and were all well-made of wood with five-strake hulls.

The boats were moored on the Oyster River about a mile from Durham towards Dover Point. We sailed on the Great Bay west of the Route 4 bridge and the Piscataqua River. Sailing was quite tricky because of the strong currents racing under the bridge, but Skip Glover really taught us how to sail. The club, too, was racing against other college sailing clubs. Harold tells about racing against MIT on the Charles River in Boston. The New Hampshire team never won because the winds on the river were difficult, bouncing off nearby buildings. The MIT team knew how to play the wind.

In Spring 1938, my brother and I, with two other club members, decided to take two boats over the weekend and sail under the bridge down the Piscataqua River past Portsmouth to the Isle of Shoals, which is 10 miles from shore almost directly opposite Rye Beach. We packed a lunch and sailed down the river with the help of the outgoing tide. We had planned to spend the night on the island, visiting classmates who were attending the summer session of the joint UNH-Cornell marine biology program. The wind for the day was moderate but there were good-sized waves so we had to be careful.

Earlier in the year one of the submarines from the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Squalus, had sunk a few miles from the Isle of Shoals in May, and as we sailed towards the island, we could see the salvage operations working to raise it. One of the Navy salvage experts was a neighbor of our family in Westfield ,N.J. Commander Edward Ellsberg had been called upon to assist in the raising of the submarine S-51 after it sank in a collision off Block Island in September 1925, and also the S-4, which went to the bottom in a collision off Cape Cod. The Squalus had sunk during a test dive, due to a catastrophic valve failure. Twenty-six men drowned, and the remainder, 32 crew members and one civilian, were rescued in a 13-hour period using a newly developed McCann rescue chamber, a revised version of a diving bell invented by Commander Charles B. Momsen. There is a room devoted to the raising of the submarine at UNH Jackson Lab on Great Bay near Durham Point.

After landing at the island, we had no sooner moored the boats and were about to look up our friends at the marine lab when who should appear but two Coast Guard officers. Were they mad? Wow! They gave us the devil for taking such a small a boat out in the ocean with no escort. They said "Back you go" when the tide changes. So we gobbled our lunch and headed back to our mooring. Unbeknown to us they had us in their binoculars the entire time so we were protected if any real problems had come up.

Later in Fall 1938, New England and the East Coast were hit badly by the Hurricane of 1938. Because of the hurricane warning, we had tied the boats up to trees along the shoreline but the storm was so bad that all of the boats were badly damaged, having been swept all over Great Bay. But fortunately Glover had taken out boat insurance, so new boats replaced those lost.

Later in 1990, the yacht club, now known as the UNH Sailing Club, moved to Mendums Pond, where the university has its recreation center. About that time, the club established a summer sailing program for young school children, which has been successful for a number of years.

The boats, sails and other equipment were all stored in a boathouse near the dock. In March 2010, the boathouse was set on fire by vandals, resulting in the loss of more than $600,000. Everything was completely destroyed and part of the dock burned as well. Thanks to the many people who contributed funds, along with the university's help, a replacement fleet of 20 new fiberglass boats were ordered. A few were available this fall. The annual Alumni Regatta was held Homecoming Weekend in October 2010 between alumni, parents and students.

My love of sailing, which originally stemmed from the club, has lasted over a period of 50 years and has included sailing in many beautiful waters, such as the British Virgin Islands, Long Island Sound, Buzzards Bay, Cape Cod and the Chesapeake. I donated my "Sweetie Pie" boat to the club this last fall.

The Sailing Club is now a club sport at UNH and may it long continue. It is now in its 75th year, and I too have had 75 years of looking for fair winds and following seas.

Dan Sweet '40 lives in Newfield, N.H., and Osprey, Fla. He is the class secretary for the Class of 1940.

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