PROVINCETOWN — Francis “Flyer” Santos thought every kid should know how to swim and sail. And he had the chance to teach many of them in his day.

Starting in 1945, when Santos was building a boat for Capt. Manuel Lema in a small boatyard across from Mechanic Street, neighborhood children and summer residents eager to learn to swim and sail would congregate nearby on what came to be called Flyer’s Beach on the West End for informal instruction.

Soon, Santos and friends, among them Larry Richmond, Richard Santos, and Joe Andrews, decided that Provincetown needed a formal summer sailing program and determined they should build it a permanent home.

The community came together for the kids. Over several winters, a group of fathers was engaged to build a fleet of small sailboats called “Weasels” from kits. A fleet of “Blue Jays” was later added. Services were donated, and prominent artists contributed paintings and sculptures for annual raffles. When enough money had been raised, the group bought the waterfront property at 83 Commercial St. — formerly Myrick Atwood’s wharf and later the home of the historic Wharf Players Theatre and Sandbar Club — and planning began for construction of a two-story boathouse there.

By June 1957, after a three-year effort, the building was completed at a cost of $4,126.40. The double doors were flung open, ready for the young sailors who, each morning, eagerly scrambled to gather up sails, centerboards, and rudders. Little has changed, as one generation has bequeathed the club, its soul, spirit, and memories, to the next.

The West End Racing Club is now the nonprofit West End Racing Children’s Community Sailing (WERCCS).

Since its inception, more than 11,000 children have learned to sail, race, and perfect their knots and maritime skills here. It’s a “club” that’s open to all, says Susan Avellar, the organization’s co-director with Dan Hoeflinger. Classes here are a still a bargain at $250 for the eight-week season.

The nonprofit’s fundraising has helped keep the classes accessible, but now, says Avellar, they’re hoping to bring in enough at their anniversary party at the Pilgrim Monument on Saturday to “get up in the air.” The building has flooded in recent years, and the club has started exploring measures to make it resistant to sea-level rise, including raising the building and adding permeable surfaces.

Avellar still teaches skills at the club, “weather or knot,” she says, spelling out her words for a reporter. Sailing lessons here still come with learning self-reliance, she says.

At first, “you set them up with a life jacket and put them in charge of the centerboard,” says Avellar. And through the weeks they learn to take over the tiller and control the sheets.

“It doesn’t give them swagger,” says Avellar, “but more like that shoulders-back kind of confidence. They know they’ve done something.”

More historic racing club images can be found online at Provincetown History Preservation Project/West End Racing Club, Early Days at 83 Commercial Street.