A hundred years of the Royal Ocean Racing Club

This is a magazine for cruising sailors, but even the least competitive amongst us cannot fail to recognise the powerful influence that the Royal Ocean Racing Club has had on recreational sailing as a sport and the boats themselves

Back in 1925, Malden Heckstall-Smith, then editor of Yachting Monthly, was one of a small group of yachtsmen who formed the organising committee for the inaugural offshore contest, the Fastnet Race, an event that has become a household name for yachties.

Heckstall-Smith was indeed an authority on organising handicaps for racing yachts. There was serious debate within this clique of yachting gentlemen about what shape this first ‘Ocean Race’ would take. The renowned Claud Worth wrote to Yachting Monthly in 1925 to state that the Ocean Racing Club’s first course should be to the Spanish port of Vigo and back.

It was a colleague, the writer Weston Martyr, who suggested a race from Cowes, around Fastnet Rock and back to Plymouth. His idea was inspired by an earlier race to Bermuda. In June 1925, Worth wrote in Yachting Monthly explaining he wasn’t entering his cutter because, with Fastnet, land would be ‘close aboard’ for ‘a large proportion of the [race] distance’.

His argument was that the Biscay crossing was more of a test for oceanic sailing. That may or may not be true, but the ‘Vigo Race’ was not to be. It attests to the different world of a century past that organisers agreed there would be no limit on crew numbers but ‘no more paid hands than can normally be accommodated in the fo’c’sle’.

The RORC has pioneered and driven change since 1925. As with other clubs, its members in the Second World War formed a vessel ‘pool’ for the Dunkirk evacuations. In 1940, RORC secretary Pete Peterson argued in Yachting Monthly for an Allied Navies War Comforts Fund to raise money to support families of naval personnel in Nazi-occupied Europe: ‘This fund to help Allied seamen will make a special appeal to yachtsmen, so many of whom have enjoyed the hospitality of Norwegian, Dutch, French, Belgian and Polish waters.’

Moving with the times

There are too many RORC members of great stature to list here but Mary Pera stands out. Club secretary by May 1972, she enjoyed a fantastic racing career, emblematic of the organisation’s international links. In 1957 Mary married the Italian naval officer, Gianni Pera.

She captained the first Italian team in the RORC Admiral’s Cup in 1969, but her fame derives from her work under her maiden name Mary Blewitt, author of Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen. This was first published in 1950 and now – more than a dozen editions in – is still a bestseller.

The writing might seem old-fashioned nowadays, but she describes with great skill the techniques of earlier sea captains. Her secret is straightforward language. You would hardly notice that by the end of it you have a very thorough understanding of spherical trigonometry.

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Perhaps ironically, as Pera/Blewitt’s book flew off the shelves, electronic aids were increasingly being used in the sport. The RORC prides itself in having taken advantage of early computers and indeed was the first to have regatta results compiled with this technology (1955).

RORC members also had influence in the formation of commercial shipping’s Traffic Separation Schemes (TSS). Radar and signalling had developed by the 1970s, with the International Maritime Organisation formalising the use of them in 1972. The first was an opt-in system for the Dover Strait in 1967. The 1972 Colregs made this system mandatory.

But an important event also helped progress; on a clear fine summer night in 1971 the Dutch yacht Merlijn was lost with six crew when she was run down by a ship while competing in the RORC North Sea Race.

The incident led to the Southsea-Harwich race being cancelled and others rerouted. Maritime authorities wanted to keep recreational yachts clear of the shipping lanes for safety reasons but a compromise was reached; yachts would cross TSS lanes at right angles to the traffic flow, as far as possible. It was RORC secretary Alan Green who is said to have resisted pressure from the Department of Trade to reroute the Fastnet course to fit a new TSS.

Smoother lines

The former club Admiral Mike Greville likes to think that RORC has inspired cruisers. ‘All the technology that’s developed in the America’s Cup will find its way down to the average cruiser,’ he says. ‘There is that trickle-down theory, which is definitely applicable in some cases with yacht design.’

An example would be HS Rouse, once described by Yachting Monthly as ‘Britain’s most important amateur designer’. The RORC member raced his Hong Kong-built cutter Golden Dragon after the war. A 46ft ketch he designed, Tzu Hang, was famously taken by Beryl and Miles Smeeton on their worldwide cruises, and stars, along with their cat, in the unforgettable Once Is Enough (1950).

‘Boats have become faster,’ Greville explains, ‘because designers have been working to get maximum speed. The way that race boats have evolved has definitely flowed down. With dual purpose production, cruisers will have to perform as race boats… take X-Yachts or something like that. There are plenty of boats around that have good
dual purpose… Beneteau, J-Boats… design and configuration is inspired by racing.’

Staying safe

In the wake of the Fastnet disaster of 1979, which left 15 competitors dead, the RORC’s technical committee looked at stability in offshore racing yacht designs. Ian Dear, in his book issued to commemorate the club’s first 75 years, wrote that even when the storm hit the race, ‘accurate information was almost impossible to obtain as the organisers had no direct radio link with any of the competitors.’

Janet Grosvenor, deputy race secretary in 1979, said it was very difficult to confirm anything as incoming calls blocked RORC phone lines, preventing the organisation from ringing out to get information and help. ‘The GPO (General Post Office) Plymouth main switchboard stepped in to help us,’ she adds. ‘New lines were set up quickly.’

Alan Green, 1979 race secretary, responded to questions about why the race had not been cancelled saying that the decision to start and continue in a race was down to individual owners only. Any decision on the part of the organisers to cancel the race once it had begun would have been impractical. The RORC’s position has been that if races are not allowed to start in a Force 8 then yacht designers might be encouraged to design less seaworthy boats. The club encourages racing in all weathers.

There have been many changes introduced since 1979, such as the need for a certain proportion of a vessel’s crew to obtain relevant safety certification, for boats to have trysails and VHF radios, to satisfy certain criteria on watertight integrity, and to limit the number of race entries.

RORC states its special regulations establish uniform minimum equipment, accommodation and training standards for monohull and multihull yachts racing offshore. ‘The actual special regulations are all developed for racing purposes,’ RORC Admiral Mike Greville explains, ‘because you can enforce them.

That has resulted in new safety kit. The standard lifejacket combined with harness arose as a result of an incident in a RORC race. A guy drowned on a RORC race. After that, the RORC committee kind of thought about, “How do we enforce a harness and life jacket?” In those days there weren’t any combined lifejackets and harnesses. Lifejackets were just too cumbersome. [It is] a good example of RORC racing being a catalyst for a technical improvement.’

A later incident contributed to debate about tethering. Christopher Reddish sadly died during the RORC Morgan Cup Race (Cowes-Cherbourg) in 2011 after he went overboard from his yacht, Lion, while still tethered on. He was not recovered on deck for 15 minutes and the Marine Accident Investigation Board (MAIB) report subsequently issued guidance on the use of tethers.

Shorter tethers, or ones that can be unclipped quickly, or attached from the rear, were important recommendations. The MAIB investigation also addressed questions of training and procedures in unusual man overboard situations, and recommended that substitute skippers be nominated in the event that the original skipper becomes incapacitated.

Inspirations

Observers could argue that racing hasn’t influenced cruising because the divide between the two forms of yachting has grown. As Mike Greville says, ‘modern race boats aren’t really set up for cruising.’ But what about deliveries, back from a race finish to the boat’s home port, say?

Have RORC’s racers shown cruisers how to do a thing or two in that sphere? ‘You can do deliveries short-handed,’ Greville replies. ‘But if you’re coming back from a destination race, you’re probably going to have most, if not all, of the crew on board.

‘You’re not really cruising. The boats aren’t really set up with the type of creature comforts for cruising, only to facilitate sail handling. No mooring cleats. Water tanks are never used – just bottles. No fridge.

‘One example would be how the RORC Caribbean Pursuit Race in 1986 was a key inspiration for renowned offshore sailor and author Jimmy Cornell. He founded the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, which supports boats crossing the Atlantic every year to the Caribbean, and compiled a celebrated guide to World Cruising Routes.

Ratings

Jason Smethwick, director of the RORC rating office, says there’s little doubt the club has spearheaded changes to design and construction. ‘People always try to find a way to make a boat faster within that rule.’

He adds that the office has always had an eye on safety, with the system discouraging developments that might sacrifice it. RORC has for decades now incorporated the stability assessment (SSS Numeral) for race committees when considering whether a particular boat is suitable for a specific race.

Commercial shipping introduced similar concepts. ‘It’s been quite influential outside the sail racing world,’ Smethwick explains, with, for example, cruising yachts like the Sigma 38 and 33 classic examples of a safe design coming ‘off the back of the Fastnet’.

The future

In this centenary year, membership of the RORC is solid, all bound by a passion for offshore racing.

Chief Executive Jeremy Wilton points out members are attracted by the diversity in racing conditions. He recalls having a last minute opportunity to compete in the inaugural Baltic Race starting in Helsinki, initially having to overcome an obstacle: having to find his wet weather gear in the garage. Wilton says the spirit of the celebrations ‘will be most keenly felt on the water’. Here’s to the next hundred years!

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