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Royal Engineer Yacht Club

The Royal Engineer Yacht Club ( REYC ) was founded in 1846 in support of the water-based activities that mattered to the Royal Engineers in their professional capacity and that they enjoyed in their free time.

As one of the oldest yacht clubs in the world the REYC has a distinguished history that includes entries in every Fastnet Race, and winning the first one, many ocean racing trophies, pivotal roles in the establishment of the Whitbread Around the World Race, many circumnavigations and an enduring commitment to introducing the challenges of sailing to serving soldiers.

As a Service charity the REYC’s charter focuses its activities on developing the watermanship skills of Royal Engineers while providing recreation, excitement, fun and personal development opportunities to all involved.

c/o Re Corps Funds Brompton Barracks Dock Road Chatham Kent ME4 4UG United Kingdom

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Royal Engineer Yacht Club

Royal Engineer Yacht Club home.sappersailing.org/

Key: D, SC, SB, MC , 100

A global yacht club. Its serving Royal Engineer members can be found in all corners of the world where the British Army is engaged. The REYC is one of the oldest yacht clubs in the world. Its original base being on a raft in St Mary’s Creek, now the site of Chatham dockyard locks. Activities in Chatham have recently been reduced and Royal Engineers are now able to carry out sail training at the excellent facilities in Gosport and Thorney Island. Membership is made up of serving Royal Engineers and other servicemen and civilians attached to the garrison. The club operates over 50 moorings in Chatham and Upnor reaches.

Mooring applications welcomed from all military and civilian yacht owners.

Mooring and membership enquiries to email: reyc.chatham (at) gmail.com

4 thoughts on “Royal Engineer Yacht Club”

i am looking for moorings to buy in belgium,but i am having no luck. i need river/canal for a 45ft cabin cruiser. i was told by a friend to contact this site. can you give me any help? tel no. 07547992217. thankyou.

Hi Raymond I’m not sure if you are addressing your request to the REYC or to all visitors to the MSBA website. I suggest you contact the following whose details you can find under Members on the website: Victory Moorings, Rochester Cruising Club and Beacon Boatyard. Best wishes and good luck Tony Lavelle

Have you seen this item on ebay?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Royal-Engineers-Rowing-Club-Commemorative-Oar-1954/203100362050?hash=item2f49b99542:g:FrYAAOSwWelfVpQI

This might be a bit of a longshot, but here goes. I work for the Big C Cancer Charity in Norfolk. Some while ago we had a donation that included a folder of yacht related sketches. The front of the folder reads; ‘The Complete Yachtsman’. Then it says, ‘ Maj. J (or F) E A Rogers, R.E. There are a number of humourous sketches some of which show some warships and others that have R.E. Yacht Club on some pennants. As I said, maybe a longshot, but are you able to cast any light on the artist? Regards Jeff Anderson

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Royal Engineers vs RLymYC

 The Carlier Plate Match 2023

The Carlier Plate Match between three yachts of the Royal Engineers Yacht Club and three yachts from the Royal Lymington Yacht Club was sailed in ideal conditions on Saturday 13 May 2023.   The competition was sailed in two J/109s and a X34 by the Engineers and in two J/105s and a J/30 from the RLymYC.   Patrick Clarke and Andrew Douglas with Peter Davies in support set a challenging course with two loops making good use of the new mark ‘U’.   The wind was fresh in the morning for the final race of the Ithnan Cup and the Shapland Goblet but gradually reduced throughout the afternoon.   With the wind in the north and the start at the Platform, the Race Officers challenged the fleets with an initial spinnaker run to U and then a beat to ‘G’.   The results below indicate a win once again for the RLymYC, retaining the Carlier Plate, but it was a close run competition as ‘Colleen’, the RLymYC J/30, sailed the course without a spinnaker having lost the halyard up the mast!   Summary results below.

All the officials and crews enjoyed a lively presentation punctuated by Patrick Clarke singing in Cornish a tribute to all assembled on the Club balcony followed by a very hospitable drinks reception offered by the Royal Engineers.   We welcome this annual event and hope for a similar re-match next year.

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The British Kiel Yacht Club came into existence on 11 June, 1945 and was started by Colonel W G Fryer, the Deputy Chief Engineer of 8 Corps.

Col W G Fryer

Recalling how he started the club, Colonel Fryer said: ” I found the Olympia Haven full of yachts and the Kieler Yacht Club locked up and empty. So I told the Chief Engineer and the Assistant Quarter Master General (AQMG) of 8 Corps that I was going to requisition some yachts from the harbour and form a yacht club. They both nodded, so I went ahead.”

These yachts, known as windfall yachts, were built in Germany in the 1930s to provide training for the German armed services. Owned by the German government, they were taken by the British government as reparations and were initially allocated to Navy, Army and Air Force of the British and Commonwealth Services. The windfall yachts to remain at Kiel included the likes of Avalanche, Overlord, Seascape and Flamingo, which, in 2015, was the last windfall yacht to be sold.

From the beginning, the “Royal Engineer Yacht Club (Germany)” made its base at Kiel and shared all the facilities of the BKYC, later, in 1946, the British Air Forces of Occupation did the same. Until the end of the 1950 season the BKYC was an officer’s club – due to the traditions which had prevailed in the Services before the War. The “Victory Sailing Club” was established in Kiel in July 1945 to provide sailing for all ranks although, as there was a separate officers-only club in the BKYC, other ranks had some degree of preferential treatment. After BKYC had to operate as a conventional yacht club, it came under financial pressure. Having no formal governmental support, the club moved to Stickenhorn in 1951 and returned the club house to the former owner, the “Kieler Yacht Club”. The move to Stickenhorn caused a significant change to the membership structure. The BKYC became an all ranks club. Nevertheless there had been officer’s and other rank’s ends in the clubhouse until 1956, when Stan Townsend became sailing secretary and abolished that structure.  After Stan Townsend retired he retained his affection and attachment to the club until shortly before he died in 1985. He bequeathed his own boat ‘Ragna R’ to the Royal Engineers Yacht Club.

The club was well supported by all ranks.  It provided watermanship training for BAOR soldiers, cruising facilities for sailing families and passage races for the racing fraternity.

Gradually the ‘windfall’ yachts were fazed out and replaced by modern yachts the last of which were transferred to the UK.

The club was a British Yacht Club. It was the owner of numerous boats and was using the facilities of Kiel Training Centre, where members of the Royal Navy, and probably also of German Bundesmarine (the KTC logo shows a lion with half a British and half a German flag), are trained in sailing.

In 2016 the Ministry of Defence’s Sailing Training Centre at Kiel was closed, and so was the BKYC associated with it. The staff and boats left for Gosport, UK, on 5 October 2016 and are now located at the Joint Services Adventurous Sail Training Centre (JSASTC).

The Commandant of the Kiel Training Centre and Flag Officer for the British Kiel Yacht Club, Major Adrian Pery said it was an emotional time.

“I am deeply saddened to see the end of an era,” said Pery. “The Kiel Training Centre and the British Kiel Yacht Club provided fantastic sail training for so many, in a fantastic place to sail – the South Baltic.”

Lt Col S G Townsend MBE RE

The name of Stan Townsend stands beside that of Bruno Splieth as a cornerstone of the BKYC. He was born on 25th April 1913 and entered the Army through boy service when he was 15.  During his three years of junior service he qualified as a draughtsman and after six years of adult service at Chatham and in Singapore he was promoted Sergeant. The war years were spent at Chatham and also in Madrid where he was on the staff of the Military Attache and where he became not only fluent in Spanish but a lover of that country. From 1949 to 1952 he returned to the Far East, this time as the Chief Draughtsman in the GHQ Drawing Office. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire during this tour.  He then returned to Chatham and on 21st September 1955 he was commissioned.  His first appointment as an officer was as Garrison Engineer (GE) on the staff of Commander Royal Engineers (CRE) Hamburg and it was there that his long association with the BKYC began. 

   Stan Townsend had first developed as a dinghy sailor during his first tour in Singapore.  During his second tour there he had earned high praise as the driving force behind the all ranks sailing club (as well as the FARELF Camera Club).  So he was already a keen sailor when he arrived at Hamburg and he immediately joined the BKYC.  In 1956 he was transferred to 404 DCRE at Kiel under the command of Maj (later Maj Gen) GW Moods, primarily as a GE, but also to act as the Captain of Boats and Sailing Secretary of the BKYC. (He was also a noted rugby referee and in 1957 he officiated at a match between East Berlin and Kiel). 

   His GE duties took him all over Schleswig-Holstein and up into Denmark. He is remembered by at least one member of the staff of the former King Alfred’s School at Plön (about 20 miles to the South East of Kiel) arriving there on his motorbike to go about his business. His talent for languages developed as he quickly mastered firsty German and then, as he spent more time in Denmark, Danish as well. 

   As a bachelor, Stan Townsend was able to devote most of his spare time to the Club for which he worked for so long.  He spent some time using his skills as a draughtsman and as a sailor to produce a handbook of chartlets of most of the harbours used by the BKYC fleet. Later he developed this into a book, ‘The Baltic Pilot’, which was for many years the definitive work in English on the Baltic waters.  During his close association with Kiel he rose in rank and finished in the post of Chief Instructor of the Advanced Watermanship Training Centre as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was finally posted away from Kiel on 27th March 1968 (after 12 years) and a month later he retired from the Army. However this was not to be the end of his association with Kiel or the Army. In 1967, before his retirement, he had acquired the 54ft yacht ‘Ragna R’.  She had been built in Sweden in 1938 and he bought her, in the UK, with the express intention of running training cruises for young men.  He based her at Thuro in Denmark and she became a regular visitor to the BKYC at Stickenhorn as she changed her crews of young soldiers and apprentice tradesmen. 

   After leaving Kiel, Stan had made his home at Chepstow where he worked as a part1ime instructor in the drawing office of the Army Apprentice College. There he joined many of the College activities, especially the annual Gilbert and Sullivan productions. He also ran the Photography Club.  He loyally supported the Beachley Old Boys Association and was eventually rewarded by being appointed as a Vice-President, an honour normally only accorded to former Commandants, 

   In 1981 Stan Townsend suffered his first heart attack and so, for that and subsequent seasons, the Royal Engineers attached a young soldier to work with him, both to help with the annual fitting out of ‘Ragna R’ and as a back-up in case he became ill at sea.  In 1984 he was taken ill again and, realising that his carefree cruising days were nearly over, he began discussions with the REYC with a view to making ‘Ragna R’ available to the Club on a permanent basis. He died on 27 th January 1985, but his memory is kept alive in both the Royal Engineer and the British Kiel Yacht Clubs through ‘Ragna R’ which as a final gesture of generosity and a wish to give young men the opportunity to enjoy the sea as he had done, he bequeathed to the REYC.

The ensign was the red ensign

The burgee was designed by Col Fryer, who had started the club, but the same month it came into existence he was transferred.

All images supplied by the British Kiel Yacht Club or Boba

Baltic Cruise 1978

Baltic Cruise 1963

The ROYAL ENGINEER YACHT CLUB

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Latest income: £130,396 (December 2020)

Income and spending over time:

Financial data is adjusted to 2023 prices using the consumer price inflation (CPIH) measure published by the Office for National Statistics.

Where this organisation works

The ROYAL ENGINEER YACHT CLUB works in 19 countries

In the UK, the ROYAL ENGINEER YACHT CLUB works in England And Wales and Scotland.

place Registered office: E12000008

Corps of Royal Engineers - Royal Engineers' Yacht Club

Royal Engineers' Yacht Club

Watermanship being one of the many skills required of the Sapper led to the formation of a sailing club in 1812 and later to the development of cutter rowing teams.

In 1899 the General Officer Commanding Thames and Medway, the Royal Engineer General Sir Charles Warren (1840–1927) presented a challenge shield for a championship cutter race on the River Medway against the Royal Navy. The Sapper teams were drawn from members of the Submarine Mining School, but when the service was disbanded in 1905, the tradition of cutter rowing was continued by the fieldwork squads.

The club developed and became the Royal Engineer Yacht Club in 1846, making it one of the most senior yacht clubs in the United Kingdom. The REYC continues to this day, operating three club yachts and competing on behalf of the Corps at races around the world. The club is one of the oldest sports clubs in the British Army.

Members of the REYC, as one of the oldest clubs in the UK, are permitted to apply for permission to fly an Un-defaced Blue Ensign along with the REYC Burgee which is formed from cannons and lions of the shield of the coat of arms of the Board of Ordnance.

The REYC was originally based on a raft in St Mary’s Creek, now the site of Chatham dockyard locks. Activities in Chatham have recently been reduced and the Royal Engineers are now able to carry out sail training at the excellent facilities in Gosport and Thorney Island. Membership is made up of serving Royal Engineers and other servicemen and civilians attached to the garrison. The club operates over 50 moorings in Chatham and Upnor reaches.

The History of the Royal Engineer Yacht Club, written by Major General Sir Gerald Duke is published by The Pitman Press.

Read more about this topic:  Corps Of Royal Engineers

Famous quotes containing the words royal, yacht and/or club :

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“ I’ve given parties that have made Indian rajahs green with envy. I’ve had prima donnas break $10,000 engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing button back in Ohio, I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home. ” — F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

“ The barriers of conventionality have been raised so high, and so strangely cemented by long existence, that the only hope of overthrowing them exists in the union of numbers linked together by common opinion and effort ... the united watchword of thousands would strike at the foundation of the false system and annihilate it. ” — Mme. Ellen Louise Demorest 1824–1898 , U.S. women’s magazine editor and woman’s club movement pioneer. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 203 (January 1870)

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Army Sailing Association Rallies

The ASA run a number of cruising rallies each year. They are great fun to attend and sailors are encouraged to take part in either their own boat or a club yacht. Details can be found at:

Link to ASA Rallies page

REYC Members Cruising Plans 2024

Details of members cruising plans for 2024 and opportunities to sail in company or crew will be posted as they are received.

Port Officer Dover, May (Retd) Phil Armstrong has advised that the issues with the new Dover Marina have been resolved. The Marina experienced a problem with wave action when the winds were from the South West and boats were being buffeted by wave action whilst moored in the Marina. The Port of Dover Engineering Section had the designers sort out a solution and there is now an impressive array of piles providing a restricted opening to the Marina which has made it more comfortable.

Last updated 12:22 on 2 April 2024