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| Short name | RWYC |
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| Founded | 1860 |
| Location | Fallbarrow Road, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria, England. |
| Website | http://www.rwyc.co.uk |
The Royal Windermere Yacht Club is a sailing club which was founded in 1860, situated at Fallbarrow Road, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria, England.
The first recorded yacht race was to be held on Windermere in 1818, using, as its land base, the inn at Ferry Nab. However, the race was not to be, the wind was then, as it is now, and that is unpredictable! (or in the case of 1818, absent). Undeterred, the hardy souls who wished to race were not put off and racing in an 'ad hoc' manner, continued for many years. Indeed, the regatta of 1824 was witnessed by illustrious figures including Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. This 'ad hoc' affair gained in popularity and became increasingly organised.
The Windermere Sailing Club was founded in 1860 and started to organise yacht racing on Windermere in a more formal manner. In doing so, it introduced limits on size and handicapping for different types of yacht. However, the club members were not averse to stretching the rules on size, apparently taking the line that everything not mentioned in the rules was permissible. This rule bending resulted in the construction of a 'one design' class, where all racing yachts had to conform to rather more stringent parameters than had hitherto been the case. This resulted in the first 'Windermere' class racing yacht, having a waterline of 22'
In 1887 Sir William Forwood acquired the Royal Warrant for the club. This was on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.
The 22' Windermere Class continued to be the only racing yachts on the lake for many years. But, in 1904 a new class was proposed. The design brief for the boat was that it should be cheap, easy to handle, suitable for amateurs, capable of being taken out quickly and may be sailed single handed if necessary. The design evolved into the Windermere 17' class yachts, or as they were called in those days, the 'second class' yachts.
The 22' and 17' fleets co-existed quite nicely for several years, but eventually the 22' class dwindled, with fewer and fewer new boats being built. This apparent malaise also set in with the 17' class, so that by 1914, the entire fleet of the club numbered 14 boats. In 1922, the club introduced the 19' class. This was not a popular class as construction prices had increased markedly, following the Great War and there were plenty of 17' boats still in use. The 19' fleet often sailed in handicap races with the 17' fleet.
On 23 October 1948, the club decided that something must be done to encourage more people to sail on Windermere. The decision they took on that date was to introduce sailing dinghies. The decision was not accepted with universal jubilation; the proposed club dinghy was to be the 'Firefly' many members were of the opinion that a dinghy would be unsafe on the lake and that catastrophe was inevitable. They might also attract 'young people'!
In 1951, the club agreed to introduce a second dinghy class. The GP14 fleet came into being. The GP was seen as a much more suitable family boat than the firefly, which was designed solely for racing. The GP Fleet remains popular with club members and a strong racing fleet can be seen on the lake during the season.
Racing at RWYC is divided into six classes. They are;
Yachting is the use of recreational boats and ships called yachts for racing or cruising. Yachts are distinguished from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. "Yacht" derives from the Dutch word jacht ("hunt"). With sailboats, the activity is called sailing, and with motorboats, it is called powerboating.
Yacht racing is a sailing sport involving sailing yachts and larger sailboats, as distinguished from dinghy racing, which involves open boats. It is composed of multiple yachts, in direct competition, racing around a course marked by buoys or other fixed navigational devices or racing longer distances across open water from point-to-point. It can involve a series of races when buoy racing or multiple legs when point-to-point racing.
Team racing, also known as team sailing, is a popular form of dinghy racing and yacht racing. Just 2 teams compete in a race, each team sailing 2, 3, or 4 boats of the same class. The winning team is decided by combining the results of each team's boats. This differs from an inter-club fleet race where boats from 3 or more clubs compete. Then the results of each club's boats are combined to give their club's overall position.
Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls:
Dinghy racing is a competitive sport using dinghies, which are small boats which may be rowboats, have an outboard motor, or be sailing dinghies. Dinghy racing has affected aspects of the modern sailing dinghy, including hull design, sail materials and sailplan, and techniques such as planing and trapezing.
The Albacore is a 4.57 m (15 ft) two-person planing dinghy, for competitive racing and lake and near-inshore day sailing. Hulls are made of either wood or fiberglass. The basic shape was developed in 1954 from an Uffa Fox design, the Swordfish. Recent boats retain the same classic dimensions, and use modern materials and modern control systems, making it ideal for the recently graduated college racer, as well as those with less experience.
The GP14 is a popular sailing dinghy, with well over 14,000 built.
The Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) or Portsmouth handicap scheme is a term used for a number of related systems of empirical handicapping used primarily in small sailboat racing.
The Firefly is a two-sail, one design, wooden or GRP sailing dinghy with no spinnaker, designed by Uffa Fox in 1946. The first four boats from the production line were named Fe, Fi, Fo and Fum. Number one, Fe, is now owned by the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. Although designed as a double-hander, it was selected as the single handed class for the 1948 Olympics but was subsequently replaced by the Finn class. The class then became popular as a low cost, one design, double hander, as was originally intended, tolerating remarkably well combined weights of 16 to 25 stone.
One-Design is a racing method which may be adopted in sports which use complex equipment, whereby all vehicles have identical or very similar designs or models.
The International Offshore Rule (IOR) was a measurement rule for racing sailboats. The IOR evolved from the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rule for racer/cruisers and the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) rule.
Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America. It allows dissimilar classes of sailboats to be raced against each other. The aim is to cancel out the inherent advantages and disadvantages of each class of boats, so that results reflect crew skill rather than equipment superiority.
The Shannon One Design sailing dinghy is an open centre board sailing boat raced on the River Shannon, Lough Derg and Lough Ree in Ireland. The boats are 18 feet (5.5 m) long by 4 feet 10.5 inches (1.486 m) beam, drawing 4 feet (1.2 m) with her centreboard down. They have a sail area of 140 square feet (15.6m2) set in a single sail, giving the boat what is called a gunter rig.
The West Lancashire Yacht Club (WLYC) is a yacht club in Merseyside, England, founded in 1894. In 1999 the club was awarded the status of Volvo/RYA Champion Club, recognising the standard of training and performance of its members in sailing competitions.
The Bermuda Fitted Dinghy is a type of racing-dedicated sail boat used for competitions between the yacht clubs of Bermuda. Although the class has only existed for about 130 years, the boats are a continuance of a tradition of boat and ship design in Bermuda that stretches back to the earliest decades of the 17th century.
Burghfield Sailing Club is an inland sailing club located close to the town of Theale in Berkshire near Reading in the south of England. The club and lake are easily seen from the M4 motorway as the westbound lane approaches Junction 12. BSC was one of the first Clubs in the UK to be awarded RYA Champion Club status.
The Twelve Foot Dinghy was designed by George Cockshott, an amateur boat designer from Southport, England in response to a 1912 design contest. It became the first one-design racing dinghy to achieve international recognition. The class was granted the 'International' status by the IYRU in 1919 and remained this status until 1964 when it was revoked by the same authority. The class was selected as the dinghy class for the Olympics in 1920 & 1928. In 1924 the French wanted to use an alternate French design.
The sport of sailing involves a variety of competitive sailing formats that are sanctioned through various sailing federations and yacht clubs. Racing disciplines include matches within a fleet of sailing craft, between a pair thereof or among teams. Additionally, there are specialized competitions that include setting speed records. Racing formats include both closed courses and point-to-point contests; they may be in sheltered waters, coast-wise or on the open ocean. Most competitions are held within defined classes or ratings that either entail one type of sailing craft to ensure a contest primarily of skill or rating the sailing craft to create classifications or handicaps.
The West Lancashire Yacht Club 24 Hour Race, has always been more commonly known as the Southport 24 Hour Race.
Handicap forms for sailing vessels in sailing races have varied throughout history, and they also vary by country, and by sailing organisation. Sailing handicap standards exist internationally, nationally, and within individual sailing clubs.