Five yachts sailed from Plymouth to New York with Francis Chichester coming first in GIPSY MOTH III. (Blondie) Hasler to organise a single-handed race against the prevailing winds and current across the Atlantic. In 1960 the Club introduced an innovation that had a profound effect on oceanic sailing – short-handed races! The 1960 Observer Single-Handed TransAtlantic Race (OSTAR) was the result of a request from Lt.Col. The Fastnet remains one of the ocean racing classics for fully-crewed yachts and the Royal Western Yacht Club has been instrumental in organising the finishing ever since. But Plymouth had been the traditional starting point for the voyages of Anson, Drake, Cook and many other great seafarers so it was, perhaps, only natural that the world’s first ocean race, the Fastnet, should be sailed under the burgee of the Royal Western Yacht Club in 1925. Yachts competing in such races never ventured too far offshore.
PORT ROYALE 4 QUEEN ANNE SERIES
As well as running an annual regatta the Club was soon organising an annual race series for J Class Yachts, an event which continued for over 100 years until 1934. Its members’ yachts, wearing the Blue Ensign, a privilege given to them in a Warrant granted by Queen Victoria, were to be seen in the farthest corners of the globe.Īt the same time the Club’s active involvement in racing grew consistently. In those early years the Club’s principal strength proved to be in long distance cruising. Its original aims were to hold an annual regatta, to organise an active social programme and to stimulate improvements in naval architecture through yacht racing, and the Club still holds to the principles of those original aims today. But Plymouth had for centuries been inseparable from every kind of maritime adventure and it would have been even more surprising if the city had not given birth to one of the world’s first yacht clubs.įounded as the Port of Plymouth Royal Clarence Regatta Club in 1827, it became the Royal Western Yacht Club in 1833. The Club was founded in 1827, when to go to sea for fun and not out of necessity was considered at best unusual and, by many, even eccentric.
Even fewer still play a leading role in their sport but The Royal Western Yacht Club is one of them.
Few organising bodies in international sport can claim to have been founded over 175 years ago.
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