Photo: Victoria Hendricks
Our Club’s History The Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club was formed in 1872. The club had strong links with members of the Royal family and gentry, which put it in a very enviable and privileged position. The Duke of Connaught, our first Commodore, was largely responsible for obtaining the Admiralty Warrant from his mother, Queen Victoria. This means that Royal Cinque Ports is one of just 29 yacht clubs in the United Kingdom permitted to fly the un-defaced Blue Ensign. Members of the club must apply for permission to do so and once granted, protocol dictates that the Blue Ensign must only be flown along with the club’s own burgee, or flag. A frequent patron of the club in those exciting early years was the then Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII. He had been bitten by the sailing bug and invested in a series of ever-more impressive sailing vessels, which culminated in having Britannia built in 1893. He often raced from our club,
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while his mother, Queen Victoria, gave trophies to be contested at our regatta. Britannia, sometimes with His Royal Highness on board, used to race against similarly impressive boats in a series of events around Britain, with Dover and the Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club featuring prominently as one of the highlights in the racing calendar. What a sight it must have been to behold these 200-tonne cutters doing battle in the English Channel! In 1893, at the RCPYC regatta, Britannia beat Valkyrie, a boat built specifically to contest the America’s Cup, the blue riband event of all yacht racing. The Prince collected the Commodore’s Cup for his victory, which was slightly tempered by the fact that the two boats and another, called the Vendetta, all collided on the way back to port and had to be towed back to Dover. A newspaper report of the time stated: “When the impact occurred, many of the persons on the decks of the vessels were precipitated into the water, but they were all rescued.”
Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club
