Udo Schroff believes that anniversaries should be appropriately observed. That’s why he was perturbed to learn that little of a nautical nature was being planned for the centennial celebration of the East Greenwich Yacht Club.

After all, Schroff thought, the yacht club should host a regatta. He raised the issue at a club board meeting and as often happens to those who come up with suggestions –he’s now in charge of running the regatta.

This promises to be like few other regattas since Schroff is seeking to make it as inclusive as possible and not just for those with sailboats.

“I’m trying to get these lovely boats that don’t race,” he said in a recent interview at the club overlooking Greenwich Cove. He’s not requiring boats to have an official Narragansett Bay PHRF certificate, a rating system designed to handicap vessels so that in theory they are all equal. Rather, working with a measurer that will take into consideration such issues as the age of sails and whether the boat has a fixed propeller that could create drag, boats without a PHRF certificate will be assigned a rating. In addition, for the novice sailing racers, there is a family class that will distinguish them from the hard-core racers.

Schroff isn’t limiting the event to sailboats either. Power boaters are also being invited. They will run an established course and are challenged to follow a predicted log using only a chart, compass and RPM of their engines.

Schroff hasn’t stopped there. He has opened the centennial regatta set for July 18 to other clubs and individual sailors as well. So far the response has been encouraging with more than 60 registered competitors.

And the celebration goes beyond activities on the water.

A dinner at the club for $20 per person will follow the regatta along with an awards ceremony. On the following day the sailing continues with one design racing of smaller boats –Lasers, Sunfish and 420s –in Greenwich Bay.

If this all sounds a little bit over the top, it is. That’s a Schroff trademark. He wants the centennial regatta to be a first class event that celebrates the club’s heritage and brings together people who love boats and being on the water.

Appropriately, the race committee boat won’t be some beat up barge with a motley crew to raise flags signaling the start to each class of racers. Rather, Schroff has enlisted Romolo Marsella to provide his 49-foot powerboat Wolf to serve as the signal boat. Running the signals will be an all-female crew dressed in white pants and red shirts –consisting of Tracey Boyajian, Diana Pearson and Dina and Connie Cloutier.

“You think the New York Yacht Club race committee is spiffy, wait ’til you see them,” he says.

The regatta will be a pursuit race projected to last three or four hours depending on conditions. Unlike conventional races where sailboats start simultaneously and then have their finish times corrected based on their ratings, in a pursuit race boats start based on their handicap. The faster boats start after the slower ones meaning if all the boats were properly rated and equally sailed they would all arrive at the finish at the same time.

According to a history authored by William Pearson III, the first recorded mention of a yacht club in East Greenwich was in 1905. However, the club did not come into being until four years later when an organizational meeting was held, articles of association were drafted and 17 people were interviewed for membership.

At its start the club leased land between the cove and the railroad track that it eventually purchased. A yearbook for 1914 notes the initiation fee was $3 and dues were $5 a year. A good portion of the book was devoted to the proper uniform for members down to the design of the buttons, according to Pearson’s account.

Today with more than 400 members, the club operates a comprehensive youth sailing program through a separate Greenwich Bay Sailing Association Building and remains open year-round. It is divided between land in East Greenwich and Warwick, but as Schroff observes, “the bar is in East Greenwich.”

Registration for the Saturday regatta is $50. The fee for the dinghy racing the following day is $20. Additional information and race registration forms are available on the club Web site: egyc.com.