Starting the second half of the century with a spreading reputation for producing more sailors than clubs bigger and richer, Crescent was determined to add luster to that reputation. Club activities that year were placed under the direction of Commodore Eugene West, Vice Commodore Kenneth L. Wright and Rear Commodore George Cossoboom. The new directors chosen for the board were W. J. Smale and Marion Tufts.

Lightning, not Lightnings, was our problem that year. A wiring system adequate 35 or 40 years ago began to disintegrate from age and use. Jury Rig no longer could save the system. Candles, flashlights, kerosene lamps collectively served briefly, replaced by a lusty, coughing generator whose staccato barks served as a background sound for Club meetings for several months.

The winter season that year was busy. Commodore Carson recruited a tough, talented crew of carpenters who crawled under the Club and replaced rotted pilings with new ones. Working on the ice, and with frequent injections of hot coffee, they literally put the Club back on its feet.

During that same period the usual skill sessions on Seamanship and Sailing were held on Sunday afternoons.

Henry Cawthra, after a period of service and silence again began to be heard in his favorite talk "More Racing." So ably did he expound that it caused our Sunday Racing to expand. At one point in the program boats from other Clubs could be seen converging on Crescent from every compass point. Competent Crescent skippers led by Cawthra almost negated the whole effort by thoroughly and regularly clobbering the visitors.

Wrangle, the only powerboat moored at Crescent, the workboat seen at every Regatta, had a blessed event: a new engine.

On July 19 we had a bad storm and several boats broke loose. That was not unusual, but it was a forerunner of other storms, which were more serious.

Some extra workdays crept into the season this year. First a trenching machine cut a path from Lake Shore Drive to the Club. Members laid the cable and covered the trench. Detroit Edison tunneled under the roadway and Henry B. Joy Jr. authorized us to trench the whole length of their beautiful estate. It was done, in one tremendous Work Day, which would have been a beauty for sailing. The trencher dug, the Members dug, laid cable, backfilled, tamped and sodded and only a practiced eye and the gleam of lights from the Club revealed the Herculean task completed that day.