A club’s trophies serve two important functions: in addition to being awards for current contests, they are a daily link with the club’s history. Yacht club trophies may come in many shapes and sizes, but the one thing they should not be is a mass-produced, multi-columned, wedding-cake-top affair with the ubiquitous figure of a small human being holding a torch, a globe, a golf club or anything else. Yacht club trophies have been fashioned from glass or ceramic objects of art, and some clubs have trophies that were custom-made from binnacles or cannons. St. Petersburg Yacht Club (Florida) has a trophy that is awarded annually to the winner of the Royal Gaboon Race. The trophy is made from a silver cuspidor said to have been “liberated” in 1948 from a notorious New Orleans “establishment.” The club will not reveal the exact nature of the es-tablishment, but explains that “gaboon” is
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