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The Vallejo Yacht Club

The Vallejo Yacht Club, guest dock, veranda, clubhouse, and race committee lookout.

There are four marinas that are, more or less, on the San Francisco Bay that you can access without having to cross the Carquinez Bridge on I-80 or take Route 37 across the north bay. They are the Vallejo Municipal Marina, the Benicia Marina, the Glen Cove Marina, and the Vallejo Yacht Club. We were looking for a place as close as possible to northern Nevada to keep our boat. 

Yes, we could keep the boat in Sacramento, CA or Stockton, CA, but we were planning to own a sailboat, and while the waters are navigable all the way to the ocean, rivers mean motoring for sail boats.

Benicia has extremely restrictive rules about over-nighting on your boat on weekends; strike Benicia. Glen Cove marina is really nice, small, and slightly out-of-the-way. It's nice enough some people had booked it for a wedding during the time we were checking it out. But the water was a bit shallow for the 7'6" draft we would need for the boat we eventually settled on, at low tide; strike Glen Cove. Vallejo Muni was even shallower; strike Vallejo.
Glen Cove marina office/facilities
Entrance to the Glen Cove marina

One Sunday morning, on our way back home from working on the purchase of Green Rosetta, and on a whim, we stopped at the Vallejo Yacht Club. I had figured that yacht clubs are much like country clubs, expensive and full of snobby people. But what the heck, it couldn't hurt to look around. We were standing in the parking lot looking out over the yacht club marina, when we were greeted by a somewhat younger couple, Bruce and Gabby. We told them we had some interest in joining the club and they invited us in for Sunday brunch.

Helga in the VYC bar on a Friday afternoon

Green Rosetta at the VYC guest dock


 It turns out that Vallejo Yacht Club (VYC) has no initiation fee, no minimum amount to spend in the dining room every month, a $65 monthly membership fee, and very competitive slip fees. It is also pretty much the opposite of a snobatorium. Nearly all Bay Area yacht clubs offer reciprocal privileges, as do many yacht clubs on the Pacific coast. Facilities include commercial kitchen, a bar staffed by members (and members can pour themselves a drink if no bartender is on duty), a big dining room, a veranda, and a workshop for working on boat parts. Also, a really supportive bunch of members. So we joined.

Check out the Vallejo Yacht Club web page 


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