Oldest Regattas

[GDEvans]

I am trying to compile a list of the oldest yachting regattas. So far I have compiled the following list. Does anybody have any more information or events I have missed?

1775 - Cumberland Cup - organised by the Royal Thames Yacht Club, UK
1822 - Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta, Dartmouth, UK
1823 - Port of Plymouth Regatta, Plymouth, UK
1826 - Cowes Week, Isle of Wight, UK
1837 - Sydney Australia Day Regatta - held every year since 1837 - longest running without a break
1838 - Royal Hobart Regatta, Australia
1840 - Auckland Anniversary Regatta, New Zealand
1844 - Royal Geelong Regatta / Audi Victoria Week, Royal Geelong Yacht Club, Australia
1845 - New York Yacht Club Regatta, USA
1851 - America's Cup, UK then Various Locations
1851 - Port Esperance Regatta, Australia

BTW, I have incorporated this list into the Wikipedia "Regattas" page.

 

[Sybarite]

I am trying to compile a list of the oldest yachting regattas. So far I have compiled the following list. Does anybody have any more information or events I have missed?

1775 - Cumberland Cup - organised by the Royal Thames Yacht Club, UK
1822 - Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta, Dartmouth, UK
1823 - Port of Plymouth Regatta, Plymouth, UK
1826 - Cowes Week, Isle of Wight, UK
1837 - Sydney Australia Day Regatta - held every year since 1837 - longest running without a break
1838 - Royal Hobart Regatta, Australia
1840 - Auckland Anniversary Regatta, New Zealand
1844 - Royal Geelong Regatta / Audi Victoria Week, Royal Geelong Yacht Club, Australia
1845 - New York Yacht Club Regatta, USA
1851 - America's Cup, UK then Various Locations
1851 - Port Esperance Regatta, Australia

BTW, I have incorporated this list into the Wikipedia "Regattas" page.

This is from the history of the Royal Cork Yacht Club set up in 1720 but having its origins from the mid 17th century:

"In the early years the majority of club sailing activity took the form of sailing in various formations, copying the manoeuvres of the navies of the day. They communicated with each other by means of flying different flags and firing cannons. Each display and sequence of flags or guns meant something and every yacht owner carried a common signal book on board, which allowed them to communicate with each other. Paintings from 1738 in the possession of the club show club yachts carrying out such manoeuvres."

So 1738 if you accept that a regatta is not necessarily a race.

 

[Searush]

The Royal Welsh YC had a regatta before they had a clubhouse, certainly there was an Annual Regatta in 1853, but not sure when it first started, probably 1847, when the club was inaugurated. You could always ask the Hon Sec (John Illesley) on hon.sec.rwyc(at)gmail.com he should have access to the records.

 

[cliffordpope]

I think chinese dragon boat races predate all these by several millennia? But what is the difference between a race and a regatta?
Didn't the Greeks and Romans race trimerenes?

 

[jwilson]

I am trying to compile a list of the oldest yachting regattas. So far I have compiled the following list. Does anybody have any more information or events I have missed?

1775 - Cumberland Cup - organised by the Royal Thames Yacht Club, UK
1822 - Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta, Dartmouth, UK
1823 - Port of Plymouth Regatta, Plymouth, UK
1826 - Cowes Week, Isle of Wight, UK
1837 - Sydney Australia Day Regatta - held every year since 1837 - longest running without a break
1838 - Royal Hobart Regatta, Australia
1840 - Auckland Anniversary Regatta, New Zealand
1844 - Royal Geelong Regatta / Audi Victoria Week, Royal Geelong Yacht Club, Australia
1845 - New York Yacht Club Regatta, USA
1851 - America's Cup, UK then Various Locations
1851 - Port Esperance Regatta, Australia

BTW, I have incorporated this list into the Wikipedia "Regattas" page.

I sailed in the Royal Bombay YCs 150th anniversary Regatta in 1996, hence the first was in 1846 - I still have a mug from that event.

Despite India leaving the Empire and later changing Bombay to Mumbai it's still called the "Royal Bombay YC".

 

[johnalison]

I copied this from the Royal Harwich YC as I know they had regattas in the 19th century. I am not a member myself.

Annual regattas at Harwich providing racing events for both yachts and working boats had been organised since 1828 when, in 1843, a yacht club was formed to run them. The so called Eastern Yacht Club carried on for the next two years running these annual events. In 1845 its Rear Commodore, William Knight who was well connected in London through the Inns of Court, arranged for Royal Patronage, securing the Dowager Queen Adelaide (King William IV’s widow) as patron.

 

[sarabande]

ahem, John Evelyn, the diarist, records on the 1st October 1661, "in one of his 'Yatchts,' or pleasure boats, vessels not known here till the Dutch East India Company presented that curious piece to the King, being very excellent sailing vessels." he sailed with King Charles.

There was a wager between the royal yacht and a similar vessel belonging to the Duke of York for the sum of £100, from Greenwich to Gravesend and back. Apparently the owners won one leg each.

Now if 'the company' gave KC a "yatcht", then there is every probability that there was racing prior to that gift. Whether a regular race (regatta) was held, I have not yet been able to discover.

 

[GDEvans]

This is from the history of the Royal Cork Yacht Club set up in 1720 but having its origins from the mid 17th century:

"In the early years the majority of club sailing activity took the form of sailing in various formations, copying the manoeuvres of the navies of the day. They communicated with each other by means of flying different flags and firing cannons. Each display and sequence of flags or guns meant something and every yacht owner carried a common signal book on board, which allowed them to communicate with each other. Paintings from 1738 in the possession of the club show club yachts carrying out such manoeuvres."

So 1738 if you accept that a regatta is not necessarily a race.

Thank you all for your responses. I personally would class a regatta as a series of races. Hence why the race from Greenwich to Gravesend is not a regatta.

And hence why I (and the RYS) only consider Cowes Week to have started in 1826. Prior to that date, according to the RYS website "The early emphasis was on sailing together (i.e. the yachts manoeuvring together as a squadron) led by a commodore elected for the day." The same applies, in my opinion, to the Royal Cork Yacht Club. Although they are the oldest yacht club in the world, I cannot find any evidence of their having a regular regatta until Cork Week appeared relatively recently.

I am unable to find any evidence of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club holding regattas from 1846. That was the year that the club was founded, hence the 150th Anniversary Regatta in 1996 was to commemorate the club's anniversary - not the anniversary of their regatta. I hope somebody can prove me wrong on this point!

I accept that races have taken place in dragon boats a long time ago, but I am not looking at rowing regattas here - just sailing. Plus WRT the greeks and romans, there is nothing specific documented that I can find, so I am only considering the "modern" era, where facts can be checked.

Updated list:
1775 - Cumberland Cup - organised by the Royal Thames Yacht Club, UK
1822 - Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta, Dartmouth, UK
1823 - Port of Plymouth Regatta, Plymouth, UK
1826 - Cowes Week, Isle of Wight, UK
1828 - Royal Harwich Regatta, Harwich, UK
1837 - Sydney Australia Day Regatta - held every year since 1837 - longest running without a break
1838 - Royal Hobart Regatta, Australia
1840 - Auckland Anniversary Regatta, New Zealand
1844 - Royal Geelong Regatta / Audi Victoria Week, Royal Geelong Yacht Club, Australia
1845 - New York Yacht Club Regatta, USA
1851 - America's Cup, UK then Various Locations
1851 - Port Esperance Regatta, Australia
1886 - Torbay Royal Regatta

 

[Resolution]

You may wish to note this comment on the Cumberland Regatta posted on the Royal Thames website at present:
"This year the Cumberland Fleet will sail for the oldest yachting trophy in the world, and quite possibly the oldest sporting trophy in the world\: the 1776 Cumberland Cup.

This magnificent trophy, manufactured for the Duke of Cumberland in 1776 by Garrard of London, was the second trophy to be competed for by the Cumberland Fleet, the first being in 1775. The original, 1775, Cup is long lost - but during the 1920s our Club began to collect what it could of the remainder, first presented in the years 1775 to 1778 (and then later known as Vauxhall Cups). As Members know, the fruits of these labours are on display in the Club entrance hall in Knightsbridge. With the exception of the 1802 Vauxhaul Cup, now known as the Trafalgar Cup, none of these early Cups has been competed for since first being won in the year of their gift.

Now, for the first time, that is to change: on Sunday 19th June 2011 members of the modern Cumberland Fleet will compete for the 1776 Cumberland Cup - a trophy not seen in competition for 235 years. It is planned that the 1776 Cup will now stay in competition each year at the annual Cumberland Regatta."
I have to say that I am quite excited by the thought of competing in my humble yacht for the oldest yachting trophy in the world. Eat your hearts out all you America's Cup arrivistes.

 

[Eccles]

Gorey Regatta - 1857

http://www.goreyregatta.org/
and still going strong.

 

[Ubergeekian]

The yacht "Peggy" - now in the Manx Maritime Museum - took part in a regatta on Windermere in 1796.

http://www.iomguide.com/nauticalmuseum.php

 

[binch]

Water frolics.

The Broads water frolics pre-date several of the given list, but I suppose someone will say that they are inelegible because they were run by village people and not by the gentry.

 

[awol]

From Wiki "The first recorded Clyde racing yacht, a 46-ton cutter, was built by Scotts of Greenock in 1803, and the great Scottish yacht designer William Fyfe did not start designing yachts until 1807. The first yacht club on the Clyde was the Northern Yacht Club, which appeared in 1824 and received its Royal Warrant in 1831. The club was founded to organise and encourage the sport, and by 1825 Scottish and Irish clubs were racing against each other on the Clyde. However, yachting and yacht building didn't really take off until the middle of the 19th century."

 

[Searush]

From Wiki "The first recorded Clyde racing yacht, a 46-ton cutter, was built by Scotts of Greenock in 1803, and the great Scottish yacht designer William Fyfe did not start designing yachts until 1807. The first yacht club on the Clyde was the Northern Yacht Club, which appeared in 1824 and received its Royal Warrant in 1831. The club was founded to organise and encourage the sport, and by 1825 Scottish and Irish clubs were racing against each other on the Clyde. However, yachting and yacht building didn't really take off until the middle of the 19th century."

But that's just the rich mens' toys.

Working boats like Pilot Cutters & Thames Barges, et al, had been racing on high days & holidays for some time before as way of relaxing & for bragging rights. Remember that the big Fifers would all have commercial crews drawn from the best of the working boat crews.

 

[GDEvans]

The yacht "Peggy" - now in the Manx Maritime Museum - took part in a regatta on Windermere in 1796.

http://www.iomguide.com/nauticalmuseum.php

Interesting lead, but the only mention of this regatta appears to be on Isle of Mann tourist websites. I can't find any other reference to it, or whether it was a rowing or sailing regatta. Although "Peggy" was a sailing yacht, she was also rigged for rowing, so could have taken part in either type of regatta.

 

[GDEvans]

The Broads water frolics pre-date several of the given list, but I suppose someone will say that they are inelegible because they were run by village people and not by the gentry.

I don't have a problem with village people - I originate from an East Anglian village!

There is sketchy evidence of them going back to the late 1700's, but I have not been able to find anything concrete. The best I have found is watercolours of water frolics from 1821 and 1824 showing sailing boats. But were these events organised races in yachts (regatta), or just gatherings (rally)? I can find little documented evidence.

 

[GDEvans]

But that's just the rich mens' toys.

Aren't all top end racing yachts really just rich mens' toys? Let's face it - the rest of us just turn up to the regattas to make up the numbers!

Certainly in the high performance classes, he with the biggest cheque book tends to (and always has tended to) win the big prizes.

 

[Searush]

Aren't all top end racing yachts really just rich mens' toys? Let's face it - the rest of us just turn up to the regattas to make up the numbers!

Certainly in the high performance classes, he with the biggest cheque book tends to (and always has tended to) win the big prizes.

My point was that working craft owned & run by local fishermen, pilots & traders had been racing for some time.

 

[VO5]

You may wish to note this comment on the Cumberland Regatta posted on the Royal Thames website at present:
"This year the Cumberland Fleet will sail for the oldest yachting trophy in the world, and quite possibly the oldest sporting trophy in the world\: the 1776 Cumberland Cup.

This magnificent trophy, manufactured for the Duke of Cumberland in 1776 by Garrard of London, was the second trophy to be competed for by the Cumberland Fleet, the first being in 1775. The original, 1775, Cup is long lost - but during the 1920s our Club began to collect what it could of the remainder, first presented in the years 1775 to 1778 (and then later known as Vauxhall Cups). As Members know, the fruits of these labours are on display in the Club entrance hall in Knightsbridge. With the exception of the 1802 Vauxhaul Cup, now known as the Trafalgar Cup, none of these early Cups has been competed for since first being won in the year of their gift.

Now, for the first time, that is to change: on Sunday 19th June 2011 members of the modern Cumberland Fleet will compete for the 1776 Cumberland Cup - a trophy not seen in competition for 235 years. It is planned that the 1776 Cup will now stay in competition each year at the annual Cumberland Regatta."
I have to say that I am quite excited by the thought of competing in my humble yacht for the oldest yachting trophy in the world. Eat your hearts out all you America's Cup arrivistes.

Indeed.

 

[VO5]

And here in Gibraltar, the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club, which is the oldest Royal Cub outside the United Kingdom, founded in 1829, and started racing and regattas in that year, so there.

And when visiting the US I rub it in, and tell them they ought to dip to us as we are the senior service, not them as their navy is much younger, formed in 1848 or thereabouts, cheeky young whipper snappers....