By David Pendered

Ted Turner is now formally honored by the blue-blazer crowd of the yachting world. The New York Yacht Club marked the 40th anniversary of Turner’s victory in the America’s Cup, in 1977, by awarding Turner the highest individual honor the club bestows.

This is a significant bow from a club with an autocratic reputation, one that took its time in even extending a membership offer to Turner. Evidently, back in the day, the club’s leadership had determined that Turner wasn’t a good fit in a private club founded in 1844 by a scion of one of the nation’s founders and led since by a host of mostly Northern bluebloods.