The new Bainbridge Yacht Club just wants members to bring

a nautical interest.

In other times or perhaps on another coast, the phrase “yacht club” might connote big boats, old money, jaunty caps and scarves, and effete martini types.

Tod Hornick sees a club as a more egalitarian outfit – like boats and you’re in, “yacht” or not.

“And no blue blazers – we’re trying to keep it casual,” said Hornick, vice commodore of the new Bainbridge Island Yacht Club.

“Our motto is, ‘it’s gotta be fun, or we won’t do it.’”

The newly incorporated, non-profit group – a distinct entity from Eagle Harbor Marina on the harbor’s south shore, where the club is based – is recruiting members for its first full year of activities.

Planned events include social gatherings, harbor clean-ups, youth sailing programs and regattas. In Hornick’s words, “any kind of nautical activity that has community involvement.”

BIYC is the island’s third indigenous yacht club, behind the venerable Port Madison group at the north end, and Eagle Harbor Yacht Club, organized in the 1970s. The Seattle-based Queen City, Tyee and Seattle yacht clubs also maintain outstations on Bainbridge.

Hornick, who took over management of Eagle Harbor Marina from his father in 2004, approached several extant clubs to see if they’d be interested in using the marina as a new home port.

They weren’t, so he and a marina tenant decided to start one of their own. It was also a way to bring together Hornick’s marina customers who might not get to know each other otherwise.

“We have a strong community spirit here on Bainbridge Island,” he said, “and I think this is a vehicle to let that shine and grow.”

Tucked into the foot of the hillside on Ward Avenue and directly across from the ferry terminal, Eagle Harbor Marina was developed in 1981 by Winslow attorney Chris Otorowski and partners.

Among the amenities is a second-story clubhouse that will be home base for the yacht club, its abundant windows and outside deck affording an expansive view of the Eagle Harbor and Puget Sound beyond.

Hornick considers it one of the area’s best views of the harbor.

“It’s beautiful and blessed,” he said. “We are truly blessed to be here.”

Already the yacht club has some 60 members, most of them marina tenants or clients. As new recruits fill out the ranks, the club hopes to fill out committees and plan activities into the formal boating season.

Organizational events so far have included barbecues, environmental restoration and the lighted boat cruise at Christmas.

The club’s first commodore and board president is Lloyd Benson, who’s been sailing for 50 years, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to Bainbridge Island.

It was in the Bay Area in the 1970s that he founded a Friday evening regatta through the Corinthian Yacht Club, an event that now attracts as many as 200 competitors each week.

“That started with two guys in a bar, trying to figure out who was the better sailor,” Benson said.

He hopes to launch a similar Friday regatta on Bainbridge, one that’s more competitive than the informal, Wednesday evening series also based in Eagle Harbor.

As members, BIYC will take anyone with an interest in boating. Especially sought are young people with an interest in sailing, including teens.

“We want to build a strong, young base so (we) can live on past…existing members,” Hornick said.

Benson credits the park district’s John DeMeyer for running an excellent youth sailing program, and hopes the BIYC can hold their interest in the sport.

“Once they’re done with that program, if they don’t go to a college that has sailing as a sport, they’re done,” Benson said.

He also wants to have the marina clubhouse open for informal gatherings at least one evening a week.

“Like a guy, I like to have a place to hang out,” Benson said, “to get away from my wife, who appreciates that also.”

You don’t have to own a boat to join the club. While Hornick grew up under sail and had a San Clemente sloop for a while as an adult, he no longer has a sailboat of his own. His passion is a sports car – which isn’t to say that he doesn’t get out on the water.

“Everybody else has ‘a hole in the water where they throw their money,’” he said. “I’ve got 120-some-odd boats here. If I can’t sweet-talk my way into a boat ride every once in a while, I’m not much of a people person, am I?”