Draft:St. Jamestown Sailing Club

= J-Town Sailing Club (St. James Town Sailing Club) = J-Town Sailing Club, officially St. James Town Sailing Club, is a sailing club located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on the shores of Lake Ontario. It is a community-oriented club that focuses on making sailing accessible and affordable.

There are no privately owned boats at J-Town. Instead, the club provides boats for members to use and holds training sessions, clinics and regattas. The club's fleet includes Albacores, Lasers, and Nacra 500 catamarans. The club's albacores participate in the long-running Friday Night Racing series on Toronto's harbourfront, which involves multiple sailing clubs from the Outer Harbour Sailing Federation. J-Town is one of the community clubs that competes for the Spanish Donkey trophy, awarded annually to the top community club in the Outer Harbour.

The club provides Sail Canada approved lessons for youth and adult during the sailing season, up to CANSail level 4.

History
J-Town Sailing Club was founded in the winter of 1967-68 by a group seeking an affordable alternative to Toronto's traditional yacht clubs. Its original members largely lived in the new St. James Town apartment complex and received backing from the local YMCA branch, adopting the neighbourhood's name.

The club initially leased its first seven Albacore sailboats and rented space at the Toronto Island Marina, erecting a simple equipment locker. J-Town was a founding member of the Friday Night Racing series.

In 1973, the club relocated to its current site near Cherry Beach, on former Toronto Harbour Commission land reclaimed from landfill. It joined five other clubs under the Outer Harbour Sailing Federation at this location.