A Logan Martin tradition since the lake began
Story by Paul South
Photos by David Smith
Courtesy of Birmingham Sailing Club
As fall approaches, bringing with it cooler winds sometimes brisk or minutes later a weak whisper, the Birmingham Sailing Club has charted a course for a busy schedule.
And as the days in 2026 dwindle down to a precious few, Logan Martin Lake gives sailors a unique challenge.
“The winds can shift quite a bit,” Birmingham Sailing Club Commodore Richard May said. “They can shift 90 degrees or 180 degrees at times. You can have gusts you have to deal with. The shifting winds and gusting winds are a problem – and sometimes no wind.”
Competition, fun and making a difference
Leading off this fall for the club is September’s Leukemia Cup Regatta. The event actually began on Logan Martin at the old Marina Bay Yacht Club, which later merged with the BSC in the late 1990s. The event is a major fundraiser for leukemia research that blossomed into a national event.
“It started here on our lake and then it became a national event all over the country,” May said. “After COVID hit, a lot of clubs stopped doing it, but we decided to keep doing ours. (Blood Cancer United, the former Leukemia Lymphoma Society) is glad to get the money.”
The fundraiser is fueled by member donations, live and silent auctions.
The regatta began at Marina Bay to honor a member who died from the dreaded disease. This year’s Leukemia Cup Regatta is set for Sept. 12 at the club.
While it just passed, one event that deserves mention, the Rock, Paper Scissors Regatta for youth sailors was held on Aug. 29-30, attracting some 50 sailors and their parents, the club’s future generations. There’s also a post-race rock, paper scissors game.
“It’s truly a nice event,” May said. “The kids have a really good time.”
Here’s a look at other fall and winter events:
Fall Adult Learn to Sail: One of the club’s major initiatives is to grow the sport of sailing through instruction. On Sept. 19-20, adults can learn to sail. The course combines classroom instruction and time on the water. UAB professor Jack Rogers teaches the class.
Moonlight Cruise: On Sept. 26, the club hosts an evening cruise, an event as much social as sailing. The informal cruise, featuring many of the club’s keel boat sailors go out late in the evening and sail together in an unofficial club event.
Great Pumpkin Regatta: Good grief, Charlie Brown! On Oct. 17, Thistle class sailors from across the Southeast and beyond come to the lake to compete in the annual event. A Thistle is a high performance, one-design boat that’s considered “fun, fast and responsive,” according to the Thistle Class Association.
“We have a circuit of all the clubs in the Southeast district, and they’ll travel to the different regattas and compete against each other,” May said. Clubs like the Lake Lanier Sailing Club, the Atlanta Yacht Club and Muscle Shoals Sailing Club are among expected competitors. All are part of the Southeastern Thistle District.
Sailing teams up with succulent culinary delights on Nov. 14 when the club hosts its Oyster Roast-One day Regatta.
The Great Scot Regatta: On Oct. 24-25, the Great Scot Regatta launches its annual race, sanctioned by the Flying Scot Association. The Flying Scot class is a 19-foot, one-design boat designed in 1957. Considered virtually unsinkable, the craft is perfect for novice sailors.
And ending the calendar year with something merry and bright, the club hosts its annual Christmas One-Day Regatta on Dec. 12.
A storied history
As the club notes on its website, before 1960, sailing was a passion for only a handful of enthusiasts from the Birmingham area, willing to travel for hours searching for fair winds
and following waters.
But Alabama Power’s construction of Logan Martin Dam sparked a sea change in sailing’s fortunes in the Birmingham area, thanks to Thistle Class sailors Sam Caldwell and Herb Hagler.
With Alabama Power maps in hand, Caldwell combed St. Clair County’s backroads, searching for a place for the new Birmingham Sailing Club. He found the spot in Vincent near the dam on the St. Clair County side of the lake. The purchase was completed in December, 1962.
The club was incorporated in June, 1963, with 44 charter members. Construction on the clubhouse, ramps and docks began in late 1963, and the club’s first boats launched on July 16, 1964.
Since then, the club has not only been home to recreational and competitive sailing, but its membership has made its mark in regional and national racing.
“All of the current members really appreciate those founding members, the way they set the club up and bought the property outright,” May said. “There’s hardly a year that goes by that people don’t express their gratefulness to those founding members that conceived of the club.”
An annual Spring race – The Caldwell Cup Regatta – is named for Sam Caldwell, who died in 2012.
Fifty-year members
The Caldwell Cup is not the only homage to the club’s founder. His children come to the regatta annually. And in a bit of sailing serendipity, two 50-year members – Stan and Donna Graham – bought Caldwell’s Thistle, keeping it in the family, so to speak.
The couple fell in love with the sport thanks to a Learn-to-Sail class at UAB, and field trips to the Birmingham Sailing Club turned a spark into a flame.
“By the time of the field trips to the club, we had already bought a boat,” Graham said. “It was Sam Caldwell’s Thistle, 2416.”
But the lure of sailing may have been cast by Graham’s father, years before.
“When I was growing up, my Dad told me I needed to find a hobby that I could participate in my whole life. You play football, and then that’s over. You play tennis, and you get old and can’t do that anymore Doggone, this sailing just got me,” Graham said.
The couple, now Flying Scot sailors, would spend Saturdays at the club practicing techniques found in sailing publications.
“We would practice all the time, when it was just me and her,” Graham said. “Not many spouses could get along well enough to be in a small boat and be competitive. Donna and I would get into small skirmishes, but we sailed hard.”
So in love was the couple with sailing that they’d pitch a tent near the clubhouse on weekends and spend the night, readying for Sunday races. And post-race, Graham kept a diary of each race.
The club has a proud tradition of competitive sailing.
“You look back over the (history of) the Southeast District that we were in, a lot of Birmingham sailors were champions of the Southeast District. So when we would go out on Sunday, we were racing against some of the best people in the Southeast. You had to get better, or go home,” Graham said. “And we got better.”
The couple took a few years away from sailing after the birth of their daughter, Laura. Years later, while taking graduate courses at UAB, the daughter took up sailing. So a family tradition continues.
“Laura was like a little bird, came back to the nest, the Birmingham Sailing Club. That brought us back,” Graham said.
A strong bond
The sailing community has a strong sense of camaraderie. This year, Birmingham’s sailing community, as well as the legal community, suffered a terrible loss when past BSC Commodore Bill North, a Jefferson County prosecutor, passed away over the summer.
“He was a great guy,” May said. “We will really miss him. He was a friend. It’s hard to believe (he’s gone), actually.”
With North’s loss, the year’s events take on added significance, May said.
“I think so,” he said. “We had a long-distance race called the Firecracker. There were a lot of people that were there. You could kind of tell there was a little more meaning to the get-together after the race.”
Across the club’s more than 60 years, a common theme rings like a bell down through the years.
“Just how much fun sailing and the camaraderie with other sailors that there is,” May said. “We go out and compete hard against each other and talk about it and have a good time. It’s a nice relationship.”
He added, “Sometimes we’ll be sailing against each other, and then we’ll be sailing with each other.”
For Stan and Donna Graham, it all goes back to their first boat, Sam Caldwell’s Thistle. Graham now finds and repairs old boats to help newcomers bitten by the sailing bug as he and Donna were a half-century ago. It’s an example of how the club warmly welcomes newcomers to the sport.
“If we had not found Sam’s boat, we might have lost interest,” Graham said.
For more information about the Birmingham Sailing Club, visit https://www.birminghamsailingclub.org.
