Brooklyn Yacht Club’s Dark Secret: A 300-Mile Ocean Struggle Marred by Favoritism and Betrayal

On a sweltering summer morning in July 1910, the Brooklyn Yacht Club’s annual Cape May race got underway in Gravesend Bay, but beneath the surface, a scandal was brewing. A small fleet of boats, including Commodore W.C. Towens’ flagship, Tammany, Leo S. Herzip’s sloop, Garcelan, and R. von Foregger’s sloop, Adyta II, set sail in light northwest breezes, struggling to make headway against a powerful flood tide. But the real story was not the challenging conditions, but the betrayal that had taken place just hours before.