Royal Dart Yacht Club 1866 to 1983

Early History

The first occasion on which a private yacht is recorded as having visited Dartmouth was in 1671 when Charles II in his yacht ‘Cleveland’, returning from Plymouth to Greenwich and faced with Easterly winds in Lyme Bay, put into Dartmouth for one night. Despite this early initiative organised private yachting was slow to get going in Britain and apart from the Royal Cork Yacht Club (established in 1720) the first club to be formed was the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1775 followed by the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1812. As the country’s prosperity grew the next fifty years saw a great increase in interest in sailing for pleasure and a number of clubs grew up around the coasts of Britain. In Torbay the first regatta was held in 1813 and in Start Bay the first was in 1834, both being organised by local regatta committees.

The first yacht club established in the West Country was the Royal Western Yacht Club at Plymouth in 1833 and the Royal Dart is thought to have been the next.

In the spring of 1866, two years after the railway reached Kingswear, Henry Studdy and a group of friends met at Waddeton Court to discuss the formation of a Yacht Club. At this meeting it was decided to form a new club which would be called the Dart Yacht Club and would be situated at Kingswear. The annual subscription was fixed at one guinea a year and for a clubhouse two rooms were hired at the new railway hotel (which initially took the name of the Yacht Club Hotel). However, as the new hotel was not yet completed, the inaugural meeting and the first two committee meetings were held at the Castle Hotel in Dartmouth.

The regatta at Dartmouth had been designated a Royal Regatta in 1866 and in 1870 the Club petitioned Queen Victoria for permission to take the title of Royal Dart Yacht Club. This permission was in due course granted and so a crown was added to the Club’s burgee and defaced ensign. At the same time, since it still housed the club, the railway hotel changed its name to the Royal Dart Hotel. When the committee was redesigning the burgee and ensign, it was decided to change thebackground from red to white. The members did not

like this change and insisted on a postal referendum, the result of which came out decisively in favour of retaining the red background.

At first the membership was limited to 200 in addition to yacht owners and by 1883 there were 276 members which included the owners of 131 yachts varying in size from 5 to 400 tons. This remarkarkable build-up reflects great credit on the judgement of the founders and on their foresight in anticipating the rapidly growing interest in yachting, which was stimulated by the powerful patronage of the Prince of Wales. In 1880 the Club was so firmly established that two members, Mr. Llewellyn and Major Bridson, offered to build a Club House on land adjoining the river and lease it to the Club for £100 a year. This offer was accepted and the new building was completed and occupied in 1881.

Ladies were first elected to membership in 1894, but at some time between this date and 1914 the rules were altered to exclude them. (presumably at a time when there were no lady members). In common with most other clubs of that era the Club then became so much a male preserve that ladies were not even allowed inside the Club House as guests, and this state of affairs lasted until 1936.

Although in the early days life at the Club was leisurely and on the whole placid, there were eruptions from time to time. At the very first Club Regatta, in 1866, one member complained that the Commodore had drawn up the Sailing Instructions to suit his own convenience and to improve his own chances of winning and even insisted on having his complaint recorded in the minutes. In 1889 there was considerable discussion over the election of flag officers and much ill feeling resulted. There were two Special Meetings and the Rear Commodore was elected twice and resigned twice, all in a period of three months. Feeling ran so high that one senior member went so far as to suggest that the Club be wound up. It would seem that after an excellent start, the Club settled down to alongperiod of slow decline which lasted until the end of the First World War. In 1889 the membership was down to 160 and in 1918 it was 64, its lowest ever, chiefly because of the total cessation of yachting activities after 1914. In August, 1918, a Special Meeting was called to consider the Committee’s report that it was doubtful whether the Club could continue after the end of the year. At this meeting the Rt. Rev. Bishop Boyd-Carpenter made this plea: “The Club has had a worthy history in the annals of yachting: it holds a Royal Charter; and though the conditions of life after the war may n e v e r be the same as in pre-war days, it is hardly likely that the British love of sport and of all that promotes the sea-faring and sea‐ loving spirit, will pass away and leave no room for those contests and happy rivalries which have contributed so much to British character and enterprise. Many, it is believed, would feel that it would be an unworthy thing if the men of famous West England should allow this Club to haul down its flag.” This was the most serious financial crisis in the Club’s history, but as on other such occasions, the members came to the rescue and the situation was restored.