Harbor Access for All

in Charlestown

(awaiting installation)

“[Sailing] teaches responsibility, self-reliance, confidence in learned skills, incentive to do better, the ability to work together, and an appreciation of the beauty, indeed the forces, of nature.” Courageous Sailing Center founder Harry McDonough

Photo by Liz Nelson Weaver

Named for two-time America’s Cup winner, Courageous, the Courageous Sailing Center was established in 1987 by Harry McDonough as a place where any child can learn to sail. Thousands have benefited from the center’s programs. Adults, too, can learn to sail here. Members take boats out for the day or weekend. And they can race, including in the winter frostbite program—for the brave. People with developmental disabilities have sailed here with volunteer partners weekly since 1990.

The heart of Courageous Sailing continues to be offering children the opportunity to thrive, especially those from underserved communities. Learning how to tack and when to pull in the jib are the easier skills to master. Working cooperatively with other crew members, managing stressful situations, and trusting your judgment are among the less tangible but vital social-emotional skills kids develop. Courageous Sailing also partners with Boston Public Schools to offer “Swim Sail Science,” which combines sailing with academics. Free transportation and meals, supportive social workers, and dedicated instructors—most of whom learned to sail here—help ensure every child can flourish.

Courageous (right) won the America’s Cup in 1974 and 1977, one of only three yachts to win the prestigious cup twice. Gifted to the City of Boston in 1987, it was docked at Pier 4 for several years—the Sailing Center’s centerpiece. A decade later, Courageous Sailing Center donated the yacht to the Newport Yachting Museum where it was renovated. The yacht now races in Newport, RI.

Photo courtesy of Tyler Fields

“Swim Sail Science,” a free five-week program, combines academics, enrichment, and sailing and swimming lessons.

The “trash boat” activity calls on kids to work together to build and test stable, fast, stylish boats using recycled materials.

Photos courtesy of Courageous Sailing Center

Frostbite sailing—from November through March—is a popular adult racing program at the sailing center.

Photo courtesy of Courageous Sailing Center

Sign Location

More …

Harry McDonough was smitten by the Courageous. But after his death in 1990 (perhaps sooner), it became pretty obvious that the beautiful 12 meter really had no place at the sailing center other than as a symbol. It needed repair by the mid 1990s but Courageous Sailing Center didn’t have the funds to restore her. Courageous was moved from Charlestown and was “high and dry and corroding in a Dorchester boatyard,” wrote the Globe. In 1997, the Courageous Sailing Center donated the yacht to what was then the Newport Museum of Yachting, where she was restored.

Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

  • Chamberlain, Tony. “Warm Welcome for Courageous,” Boston Globe, June 18, 1987.
  • Chamberlain, Tony. “A Courageous Mission,” Boston Globe, Sunday, August 23, 1987.Chamberlain, Tony. “Courageous keeps dreams afloat,” Boston Globe, June 14, 1988.
  • Chamberlain, Tony. “He Kept the Quest Afloat,” Boston Globe, October 14, 1990.
  • “Program gives blind sailor a chance to enjoy the sea,” Boston Globe, August 14, 1994.
  • “Close to the Wind and Water,” Boston Globe, April 22, 1995.
  • “Maiden Voyages,” Boston Globe, May 31, 1996.
  • Murphy, Dan. “Courageous kids learn to sail,” The Charlestown Bridge, October 27, 2004.
  • Courageous Sailing Center website
  • Interviews with sailors and staff at Courageous Sailing Center, August 2025.

Acknowledgments

  • Our gratitude to the Perkins School for the Blind and Thomasine Berg  for their partnership in creating the audio files.