An update on the Charlottetown Aquatic Club

In my note on the Charlottetown Aquatic Club I stated that there seemed to be no news of the club after the outbreak of the Great War.  Now I have located a couple of more items that suggest that the club activities continued for at least another year.

Guardian 3 July 1915 p.5

Clearly there has been some difficulties for the Club, which, for some reason needed to be “re-organized”.  The appearance of four trophies suggests that the level of interest was high. Two of the cups were put up by the Charlottetown Aquatic Club and two brought back by Edward Irwin from his recent trip to Boston.

That the club was very much a motor-boat club is clear from the news of the first activity planned for the organization. Two weeks after the Guardian announcement about the club re-organization the first of the races was announced. This was to be a trial race for boats of two cylinders and those of one cylinder to establish handicaps for the rest of the race season. Many of the boats would have been equipped with engines manufactured by Bruce Stewart and Company which had begin production at its plant at the head of the Steam Navigation Wharf in 1909.

Ad for Imperial engines Guardian 17 March 1917 p.2

There was a clock-wise course starting from a line defined by the judges boat and a flag buoy, thence to Government Point Black Buoy [now Middle Ground Green] leaving it to Port, thence to the Messervey’s Point Buoy,[I’m not sure where this is but am guessing it is the Langley Beach Red]  thence to the flag buoy off the Railway Wharf and back to the start line. Twice around for two-cylinder boats, once for one-cylinder boats.   While the is little doubt that the races were held only  the results for the second race in the series have been found.  Bruce Stewart’s Imperial led the A class of seven boats  while A. Aylward took first in the B Class. Of the dozen boats listed I have been able to find a photo of only one – Hal Bourke’s “Flirt”.

It is worth noting that among the Aquatic Club officers were Hal Bourke and Mac Irwin, both of whom were to become very important when the Charlottetown Yacht Club was established in 1922. Hal’s Restless and Mac Irwin’s Roamer  were still very much in evidence in the early 1960s when the current crop of CYC “mature” members were youngsters and many of us can remember trips on these two boats.