Community Boating, Inc.

The Community Boat Club later relocated to Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) property on the Upper Basin without permission over concerns that they had been sailing too close to the Charles River Dam.

In 1938, they regularly drew attention to their cause by sailing under the Longfellow Bridge into the Upper Basin, including once during the annual American Henley Regatta at the Union Boat Club.

In 1939, the Community Boat Club petitioned the recently-elected Governor Leverett Saltonstall, to use a portion of the $1 million gifted to the city by Helen Storrow for the improvement of the Charles River Basin to build a boathouse.

In the summer of 1939, Saltonstall attended the club's boat christening ceremony, one of which was named after him, and in 1940 he asked the state legislature to designate part of Helen Storrow’s gift for completing the boathouse.

[4] Lee's program gradually grew less mischievous and more formal, but his kids insisted that the city needed a permanent place for cheap public sailing.