royal yacht squadron

The Royal Yacht Squadron was founded in June 1815; long considered the most prestigious yacht club, perhaps in the world.

Some years ago, I bought at auction two volumes pictured here, “Burnets Own Times” 1838. Opening the front cover I found a do not take label. I contacted the RYS librarian concerning these tombs. The response was one wondering how it could be that I might have possession of these books. A tone I initially interpreted as accusatory . I recovered from this thought and in 2005 at the finish of the Trans-atlantic race co-hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron , I returned the books to the Club.

america’s cup jubilee 2001

the America’s Cup Jubilee held in 2001 in Cowes, England. The Woodstock of sailing as it has been described. Was truly a remarkable event. The Royal Yacht Squadron set the standard of how to make people happy. 38 twelve meters assembled in one place for the first time ever; along with so many other fabulous boats. For those of us who love sailing it truly was the best of the best, with no end of the “eye candy”.

White Crusader and Ecosse(USA) sailing upwind. Vanity V with 5 Vargas girls spinnakers;

the crew photo is Olin Stephens with a smile from ear to ear posed with the crew of Nyala sailed by Troben Grail

Columbia, the 1958 defender in the America’s cup aboard which I sailed, in a foul tide with the cliffs of the needles in the background.

Finally a photo of a water spout with Corsica in the background. taken while sailing Columbia from Sardinia to Monaco.

The hardest thing about this post was to limit the photos, I smile to myself every time I think of this event and how fortunate I was to have been able to take part in it.

trans-atlantic 2005

the 2005 trans-atlantic race from New York to Cowes, Isle of Wight, England. aboard”Tempest” the 80 foot S&S ketch, sistership of Kialoa. A crew of sixteen pictured here.

the race took us just short of 15 days. we won our class losing to Leopard of London by a minute and forty seconds on corrected time. one can find a lot of places where we squandered that time.

other crew have written eloquently about the race.

the chart shows our track and that of “Snow Lion” in the 2003 race from Newport to Hamburg, Germany. the significance here is the similarities in the early stages of the race.

lastly, my watch, I was the watch captain, and blessed with the best group one could wish for. naturally we were always faster the the other watches.