Yacht Clubs Round the World

Yacht clubs, depending upon where they are and their membership numbers, vary greatly worldwide. They usually have a few things in common … a love of sailing and the sea … and a bar. We've visited little, tiny clubs that have only a few members, a few boats and a bar. We visited the friendly, little Niue Yacht Club which had no boats, nor, for that matter, any members who'd ever owned a boat or sailed, but they did have a bar. The bar is always obligatory! Commodore Keith readily admits he has no sailing experience, but the island certainly does love yachties.

The Suwarrow Island Yacht Club in the Cook Islands was a cruiser's haven. The “yacht club” was nothing more formal than a meeting (and drinking) place on Direction Island for yachties who stopped for a respite at this tiny uninhabited atoll at the Cook Island's only national park.

Several yacht clubs offer amenities to visiting sailors. Sometimes we've been offered a free mooring or berthing for a couple of days or in the case of the most generous Yacht Club Peruano near Lima, Peru, we stayed for a month on their largesse. The members stopped by daily to invite us to coffee, lunch, dinners, excursions. Friends made there, especially Gonzalo and Magdala, have remained good friends through the years.

Sometimes, we're offered free membership in the club for some period of time allowing us to use the facilities or eat at the restaurant/bar at member prices. Sometimes it's a most welcome, hot shower like in Mossel Bay, South Africa or a mooring in Esperance, Western Australia or perhaps, a cold beer at the Buffalo River YC in East London, South Africa. The smaller or off-the-beaten track clubs are usually more friendly and welcoming. At the larger clubs, we're lost in the noise of yacht club activities, as well as the frequency and volume of visiting yachts.

Some yacht clubs are famous. The Panama Canal Yacht Club, for instance, was an icon. We were lucky to have had a chance to visit before it was torn down to make way for containers and other important shipping stuff.

The Club de Yates Micalvi in Puerto Williams, the southernmost town on the planet, was perhaps the most unusual yacht club we've visited. It was nothing more than an intentionally grounded munitions carrier that yachts tied to … sometimes rafting four boats out. The ship was a rusting hulk, but still offered showers and backpackers slept on the decks. It had, of course, a requisite bar.

The Royal Natal Yacht Club in Durban is the oldest yacht club in Africa, but sadly, it's losing its members, perhaps because of its downtown location or lack of activities or other business reasons. The adjacent Point Yacht Club seems to be facing similar problems.

I'd say Royal Cape is probably the most prestigious, as well as largest and most active yacht club (not to be confused with a marina) we've ever visited. Begun in 1905, it really didn't get its legs under it until the Cape to Rio Race in 1971. With 400+ berths and 2,000 members, there's always something going on. They have a very competitive racing group, a sailing school and youth sailing, as well as lots of fun sails and activities like monthly Jazz on the Deck. There's rarely a time when the restaurant and bar are empty. Lying in the shadow of Table Mountain close to the city center, there's not a better place to be in Cape Town.

The friendliest yacht club? That's probably a toss-up between the Yacht Club Peruano in Peru and the Mandurah Offshore Fishing and Sailing Club in Mandurah, Western Australia. Both clubs were particularly generous and the members went out of their way to be welcoming and include us in their activities. These are folks we're still in touch with and who will remain friends forever.

I'm sure some yacht clubs are pretty snooty and exclusive, but we haven't found them yet. We travel in different circles, I guess. Without exception, our experiences at local yacht clubs have demonstrated the generosity and camaraderie of the sailing network around the world.

A note … in the USA we call sailboats, unless they're ginormous, sailboats and tend to think the “yacht” terminology is pretentious. The really huge, luxury boats, motor or sail, are called superyachts. In many parts of the world, however, and by definition, a yacht is a vessel designated for personal, recreational use and/or competitive racing versus commercial use.

The Blue View - Reefing

 

Neptune has has been very good to us over the years. When we do something stupid or ill advised, he usually provides us a with a lesson to show us the error of our ways. These lessons almost always result in some embarrassment, frequently involve a short term adrenaline rush, and, on occasion, has resulted in some damage to the boat. Fortunately, he has helped us avoid any major catastrophes, and the damage to our egos was usually much greater then the damage to Nine of Cups.

One of his first lessons was on reefing the sails. This is a maneuver used to reduce the sail area when the wind increases (as opposed to the other kind of reef – the hard kind we bump into every once in awhile – that's another of Neptune's lessons for a future blog). We had only been on Cups for a couple of months and were heading up the east coast of Florida. Marcie had just brought dinner up to the cockpit when we saw a big squall heading our way. We had all our sails up, but surely we had enough time to eat our dinner and then reef down before it got to us. Ten minutes later, as our dinner plates scattered to the winds (literally) and we were hunkered down on the floor of the cockpit fearing for our lives, we learned Neptune's lesson about reefing and reefing early.

Since then, we always reef at the first sign of bad weather. On a long passage, we reef down just before dark each day as a precaution. We have streamlined our reefing technique and it now only takes a couple of minutes to add or let out a reef.

On Nine of Cups, we use a simple slab reefing system. Our main sail has three sets of reefs. The sketch only shows one reef, but our sail has two more sets of cringles and reefing points located higher up on the sail, as well as two more cheek blocks and rope clutches. We also have duplicates of the reefing lines, blocks, clutches and winch on the other side of the boom, so we can always reef on the windward side of the boat. Our procedure for reefing is slightly different depending on whether we are sailing into the wind or downwind. I will describe the process for the former first.

If the wind is coming from forward of the beam, reefing is quite simple. First, we remove the downward tension on the boom by slacking off on the vang and mainsheets. The aft end of the boom is raised a small amount by bringing the topping lift in a turn or two. Then the mainsail is lowered by letting out some of the main halyard. We have marks on the main halyard for each of the reefs, so we know just how much to let out.

One of us goes forward to the windward side of the mast and pulls the luff reefing earring down and hooks it over the reef hook. Next, the leech cringle is winched down until the cringle is close to the boom. Then the main halyard is tensioned, the boom tension is adjusted using the vang, and the mainsheet is trimmed. The whole maneuver usually takes less than five minutes (perhaps less for more agile sailors!).

If we are sailing downwind, the process is similar, but slower and more controlled. The mainsheet is cranked in, if necessary, until the boom is well away from the shrouds, and then the tension is removed from the vang. One of us, usually me, goes forward to the mast and pulls down on the luff while the sail is slowly lowered a foot or so. The leech cringle is then cranked in. The mainsail is lowered another foot or so while I continue to pull down on the luff and keep tension on the leech cringle. These steps are repeated, a foot at a time, until the luff reefing earring can be hooked over the reef hook. Once the earring is secured, the process is the same for downwind or upwind. With two of us, it usually takes about ten minutes to reef downwind. It can be done by one person, but the time would probably be doubled.

There are a lot of different methods and variations of these methods for reefing, all with pros and cons, but this is what works for us. Though I wouldn't ever consider us fast learners, Neptune has a way of making lessons stick vividly in our minds. We reef fast and early.