If you belong to a yacht club, how involved are you? Do you enjoy just the racing, the provision of convenient moorings, or having a comfortable watering hole to enjoy the company of fellow sailors? Have you borne flag officer responsibilities, or been involved in event-organising committees? Is your membership something you cherish?
In Victorian times it was common for small communities to set up new clubs for servicing local needs, and equally common for them to fold after a few initial enthusiastic years. Their titles were far from random: ‘Sailing Club’ suggested a local membership, with smaller boats. ‘Corinthian’ implied the philosophical stance that owners should helm their own craft, rather than employ experienced ‘hands’ to do so. ‘Yacht Club’ signalled pretentions to attract more prestigious vessels. A Royal prefix implied certain standards of rank, solvency and behaviour from the members.
LARGS
In the mid 1870s, the local lads in Largs, a small fishing town close by the Fifes’ Fairlie yard, on the Firth of Clyde, were feeling an urgent necessity to create a new club. After a “wild south-westerly gale” had spoiled the mighty Royal Northern Yacht Club’s regatta, it had “fled in disgust” from Largs to set up races at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute where the townsfolk laid on an extravagant welcome, with every intention of poaching their visitors
