The Beginning of Penn Sailing courtesy of Bill Callahan

When I came to Penn in 1948 there was no active sailing program. I heard, from a fraternity brother, Roy Robinson, that it was possible to sail at other schools since we had no boats. Roy had done this on occasion. We were able to go to Princeton, Annapolis, George Washington and Kings Point to participate in regattas. By my sophomore year, we had added a number of sailors and I remember Charley Stewart, Chuck Evans,Warren Eve from Bermuda, Austin Heath, Julian Magnus and Bud Halpert as the "regulars" who were very active. As I indicated previously we were very fortunate to have Dr.Britton Chance as a faculty advisor( as recantly as 2001, at age 88, he was still a staff member at Penn) and, through his efforts and financial help, we were able to buy our first boats, the sloop rigged Fairey Fireflies from England. They were far superior to the single sail dinghies most clubs used so we had lots of visitors when our program became known. Locally, Drexel sailed with us frequently. When we first got our boats we sailed on the river from boathouse row surrounded by rowers but after one year we moved to the Cooper River Yacht Club in Camden where we were made to feel at home and benefitted from a much nicer, sailing oriented situation. I'm not sure how long Cooper River remained as a base but I certainly enjoyed it. When I left in '52, the club was very active and I' m very pleased to see how well it has survived.

Bill Callahan