The Tavern of the Seas

Table Bay Yacht Club, founded in 1905

Now that we are spending so much time in Cape Town, we decided to take advantage there of something we had been missing in Johannesburg ... ocean sailing. The Transvaal Yacht Club outside of Joburg doesn't have an ocean, but the Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town has two ... so we joined the RCYC!

The RCYC is a very historic yacht club. According to their website, 

"The Club was founded as the Table Bay Yacht Club in 1905 and commenced operation as such in a waterside boat shed located some 50 to 60 metres northward of the foot of Loop Street. Surviving early vicissitudes, the club's name was changed in 1914 to the Cape Yacht Club which incorporated the Alfred Rowing Club and shortly after we received the Royal Charter to become the Royal Cape Yacht Club.

Buffeted by change we moved from clubhouse to clubhouse, and it was not until the decade after the 2nd World War (1939 - 1945) that the shell of the present clubhouse came to be erected. It was added to when the local yachting boom - started by the first Trans-Atlantic Race from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro in 1971 - took off and changed the Club from a small membership of around 300 to the present figure of some 3000. Boat accommodation was forced to progress from swing moorings to the marina's of today. Likewise control had to pass from amateur committees to the professional staff which you will find today."

The Club hosts important sailing events including the country's premier keelboat regattas. The Cape to Rio and South Atlantic Races have been hosted by Royal Cape Yacht Club since inception in 1971. Other international events have included the Whitbread Round the World Race, the BT Global Challenge, The BOC Around Alone Race, The Lisbon Expo 98, Clippers, and the Hong Kong Challenge, and in just a couple of weeks, the Volvo Ocean Race which will stop in Cape Town at the end of the first leg of its 40,000 nm round the world race. 

According to the Club's website, down through the centuries the southern tip of the African continent has extended a welcome to seafarers, gaining for the city the soubriquet of the "Tavern of the Seas." Tavern of the Seas and from it, you can sail the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans. Sounds like the perfect yacht club for us!