The Royal Yacht Squadron

Ed Gorman heaps praise and not a little scorn on this venerable British institution.

In the small world of British sailing, it is rare to find a good word about the Royal Yacht Squadron, an institution regarded as elitist - in the divisive social sense - and out of touch with the cut and thrust of the modern competitive sport.

The Squadron rarely, if ever, finds itself the subject of praise. In fact the opposite is more often the case, something which has encouraged the club's somewhat aggressively defensive posture in response to its many critics.

Yet over the past two weeks it has been impossible not to notice the plaudits which the RYS has been accorded by American yachtsmen and women who came to Cowes for the America's Cup Jubilee Regatta.

About a week before that extraordinary event kicked off, a senior officer of the RYS confided that he was not so much looking forward to the Jubilee as looking forward to when it was over.

However - and despite the many doom-laden predictions that the relatively underfunded and under-organised event was going to be chaotic - it seems he and his colleagues in Cowes Castle got it just right, to judge by the flood of recent correspondence on the American Internet newsletter, Scuttlebutt.

Our friends from across the water were thrilled not just by the way the regatta was run on shore but by the RYS race management too. Take Chris Bouzaid: "What a wonderful regatta the RYS and NYYC ran in Cowes," he enthused. "These will be great memories for as long as the old memory still works. However one cannot leave this scene without paying tribute to the amazing job done by the RYS race committee on the 12-Metre course and presumably all the other courses. In 50 years of yacht racing I have never raced in a regatta where the Race Committee was so helpful and able to keep us all informed of everything going on in our race."

Another big fan was Keri Shining who said the organisers deserved "kudos" for making the Jubilee the most accessible America's Cup event she had ever attended. "All of Cowes seemed like one big yacht club and I've never felt more welcomed by any sailing venue or its citizens," she wrote. Many more praised the Jubilee without specifically mentioning the Squadron, underlining that much of the credit for its success must also go to Bruno Trouble and his team who worked with the RYS and the NYYC to organise the regatta.

It makes you wonder whether we in Britain have been unfair in our view of the Squadron. Perhaps, after all, it is an institution of which we can be proud. There are some far-sighted members with progressive ideas and the club provides an excellent focal point for racing in scores of regattas every season plus Cowes Week which is run from its battlements. It is also a fierce guardian of the traditions and history of British sailing which are certainly safe in its hands.

Yet, despite all of this, the Squadron remains in the early years of a new century a frustratingly out of touch organisation which seems to do little for the greater benefit of the sport. Its main contribution in the image-conscious world outside sailing is to reinforce the still widely-held impression that sailing or "yachting" is for rich people who belong to weird clubs, which have restrictive membership policies and are prejudiced against women.

Despite its contribution in Cowes, the RYS is not generally associated with the progressive areas of sailing as, arguably, it should be given its prominent historical and geographical position. The Squadron has no links with the RYA's Olympic or World Class Performance Programme or with solo ocean racing. Nor does it have any youth programme of its own.

And why, you may ask, is the RYS not involved as a backer or official club of entry, for the GBR Challenge in the America's Cup. This would seem to be the perfect vehicle for the Squadron to throw off its crusty image and get involved with a new generation of exciting and talented young sailors, especially given its historical links and many challenges for the Auld Mug.

madforsailing can reveal that the RYS was asked to represent the GBR Challenge but, surprisingly it wanted money and lots of it. So much money in fact that the syndicate had to look elsewhere. As a result GBR Challenge is sailing in Auckland next year under the burgee of the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

Clearly the RYS has done a good job on revisiting the past in its work on the Jubilee, but it has yet to find a role in the much more challenging and uncertain world of the future.