Club History
Shotley Point Yacht Club was launched formally on 12th April 1990 by a small group of sailors who wanted to cruise in company. We don’t know the exact date the idea started, but by 12th April there were already 70 members (people), with both sail and power boats. Membership fees were £10 a year with £15 for families, and £5 for social members. The events promoted in that first year included the inaugural Easter shakedown cruise to Brightlingsea, a Woodbridge trip, a bank holiday cruise to Zeebrugge, BBQ at Stone Point, and a Harty Ferry trip. They also planned a “children’s day” with dinghy races and fancy dress on the Shotley beach with a charge of the princely sum of £1 per head. In the first newsletter Shotley marina welcomed the new club and hoped it would become the “heart of the marina”.
Reading through early newsletters (not yet called “Crows Nest”) there seem to have been the same sort of trials and tribulations we have today – members joining the club and then not going on trips, the price of diesel and electricity in the marina, the challenges of bureaucracy when sailing to Europe. Social events were not dissimilar to today’s with a laying up supper on Sailing Barge Thistle in 1991 with plenty of food and liquid refreshment consumed plus silly and humorous awards such as a hand woven net for someone who had a fouled propeller and a pocket whip for someone to whip his crew. Some of the newsletters included weather and navigation information, including (January 1992) a hand-drawn chart of the Deben entrance showing the approach from due East rather than the current SSE.
Over the years there were many cruises in company to the same places we go to now, with added barbecues, safari suppers, treasure hunts and socials, plus complaints about the lack of trolleys in the marina and call-outs for volunteers to organise events. In August 1993 membership had grown to 51 boats as well as their crews, and during that year the club’s logo changed from a stick-like representation of the Ganges mast to a more elaborate image, very close to the one we have now. They also introduced monthly club evenings with quizzes and talks. By 2003 there were 160 members with 82 boats.
October 1995 saw the transformation from “newsletter” to “Crow’s Nest”, which included a reminder that polo shirts etc were available (no pictures unfortunately), and in January 1996 it was decided that collecting subscriptions on 1st April (although the club’s financial year ran from January to December), was a daft idea and subs would be due in January next year.
Suffolk-based round the world sailor, Josh Hall, gave a talk to SPYC members, and accepted an invitation from the committee to become the club’s first honorary member. It didn’t say if he attended the annual Commodore’s Cocktail Party! It seems in those days that part of the Shipwreck bar was given to/commandeered by SPYC, with club pennants from members’ cruises being brought back to put on display, including one from Florida.
The Crows Nest included a short section welcoming new members, with a brief description of them, their boats and where they live, with an exhortation to existing members to say hello; “if there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s being friendly”. There is a “Situations vacant” notice for a new treasurer, described as a “less than dynamic, totally reactive position” and with the only provisos being that the candidate should “be of a laid back disposition and partial to the occasional alcoholic beverage at weekends”!
At some point SPYC introduced what was christened a “Frostbite Cruise” which was an end of year (think 28th December) cruise to Fox’s for lunch. One hopes they had sunny days for these. A report on one of these events described clearing three inches of snow from the deck and dousing sheets with seawater to make them pliable.
A very early hint at the concept of Crew Pool is mentioned in the 1998 edition of Crows Nest. Cambridge University Cruising Club (a dinghy and windsurfing club) was looking to find SPYC boat owning members who would be willing to take some of their members as crew to enable them to get some yachting experience. In the same edition they announced Friday evening club nights in the Shipwreck where the chef-patron was very supportive of SPYC, and apparently served up very good food. Later that year the Shotley Cod Fishing Competition was announced. There was no mention about the catch being served in the aforementioned hostelry. Interestingly, that year’s Christmas dinner was held at the Forresters in Chelmondiston, a pub which has since been demolished to make way for housing.
April 2000 heralded a new and novel idea about communicating with members. Some people had expressed a preference to receive events information by email rather than by post, although many still preferred “snail mail”. SPYC was launching itself into the modern era. This year also showed the introduction into the magazine of some colour photos (although of dubious quality). A website was started around 2001 and it appeared to promote events and feature write-ups and photos of these. The Crows Nest boasted that the site had received 650 hits in four months. By 2003 the colour photos had improved and were accompanying some excellent Crows Nest articles, including technical ideas, weather advice and visits to destinations near and far.
In 2002 members Pat and Russell Eberhardt emigrated to sunnier climes, and presented SPYC with a cup to be given to a club member “worthy of recognition as deemed by the commodore”. The Eberhardt Cup is to this day in the gift of the commodore and is awarded annually. Membership levels were buoyant; at the end of 2002 there were 82 boats in the club with more than 40 of these taking part in various events through the year. Members were based in various marinas on the East coast, not just Shotley, as well as France, Spain and Menorca! Early in 2004 a questionnaire was responded to by 39 members most of whom supported how the club was organised. They wanted more events at Shotley, such as barbecues, dinners, quizzes, speakers and courses. Most also liked the idea of non-sailing visits to such places as RNLI, Trinity House and yacht builders.
Some of the features of our environment which we now take for granted did not exist at that time. The road from the Bristol Arms to Shotley Marina was a narrow dirt track (scary in wet and windy weather) and the Gunfleet Sands wind farm had not been built (completed in 2010).
As always, the Crows Nest had mention of boats running aground (or “touching bottom” as many of us prefer to call it). A 2011 report of one such event gave the following excuses: “the Japanese earthquake moved parts of Japan one metre thus causing Foulness Sands to move in sympathy” and “the last time the Crouch channel was surveyed was in 1736”.
In June 2012 the club celebrated HM Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee with a flotilla on the Stour (dressed overall of course) followed by a celebratory get-together at the marina with drinks and a cake. The June “summer” weather saw everyone in oilies for the water part with fleeces and wind-proofs on land.
By 2013 technology had caught up, although the club website had undergone several transformations with different webmasters. However, all members had voted for communication to be sent via email, even if many still liked their printed Crows Nest. It would be a couple more years before it was decided that printing the magazine was not worth the expense, and everyone would receive pdf copies. Those were the days before the idea of cutting down trees for paper had become unfashionable (as well as wasteful).
A new award was introduced at the 2014 laying up supper. The widow of a well-respected and longstanding member wanted to create an award in his memory. Apparently, whenever conditions got rough or they faced challenges at sea Phil would tell his wife that these moments were “character building”, so she decided that the Phil Renno award would be given to someone who had faced some difficult challenges. However, the first recipient was someone who had a decided knack of going aground, so there was an element of this award not taking itself too seriously!
It was also in 2014 that the idea of a “Best Practice for the Committee” document came about. This could support the more rigid Constitution, and work as a guideline for common sense decision-making. The Best Practice document has now become an important part of how the club is run, and enables the committee to make minor decisions without the need to wait for an AGM, where any major changes would need the vote of the entire membership.
SPYC’s 25th Anniversary in 2015 was celebrated with a large flotilla of boats sailing up the Orwell to Ipswich. About 20 boats crammed into the lock at Ipswich and moored on two pontoons in Haven Marina. Members enjoyed a “bring and share” picnic for lunch followed by an evening dinner at the Novotel.
2016 saw several new ideas introduced. SPYC took part in the RYA sponsored “Push the Boat Out” initiative to promote boating and encourage new people on to the water. We held an open day at Shotley Marina which included stalls run by the RNLI and local sailing-related businesses as well as taking people out for a short “taster” trip on the river. A couple of younger members realised that social media was becoming an essential way to make our presence known, and set up SPYC’s Facebook page.
2016 also was the year when we formalised the idea of Crew Pool as a new category of membership, encouraging people who would otherwise not have access to a boat to become crew for boat owners who were looking for extra pairs of hands. At the time we had not anticipated how successful this would become; boat owners started to join the club to access our pool of members looking to find useful crew. SPYC even got a mention in Yachting Monthly – “If other clubs took your lead, so many … could experience just how pleasant it is to go sailing”, and the RYA provided a small grant to help promote the concept.
Over the next couple of years SPYC continued to organise many events, and by 2018 was bucking the trend by increasing member numbers, while many clubs had a diminishing membership. The first overseas event for some years took place in 2018 with a trip to the Netherlands.
Our members have always come from many walks of life, including the armed services, and in 2019 a serving Army officer (assisted by another retired Army officer) arranged a live flares day at the STANTA battleground in Norfolk. Under strict supervision each of those attending set off a rocket parachute flare and a red hand-held flare.
2020 and 2021 were difficult years for the whole world, but even COVID did not stop SPYC members having a bit of fun. The 2021 Fitting Out Supper was a “virtual” one, held via Zoom with a guest speaker, games and quizzes. The restrictions meant that people were not allowed more than short visits to their boats, so they were pleased to at least catch up with each other on a screen.
The WhatsApp group was started in 2020 and proved to be not just a way for members to chat, but also became a useful tool for communicating information about events, so much so that each event now has its own WhatsApp group where attendees can be kept up to date. A new award was introduced – the Commodore’s Cup – to be awarded to the member sailing the greatest number of miles on club events, and SPYC started accumulating equipment which could be loaned out to members.
SPYC has always tried to keep people interested throughout the year, and in the winter months held various land-based sessions. We held “meet the expert” days, with speakers ranging from professionals to club members, and subjects as diverse at meteorology, galley equipment, knots and the RNLI. There were occasional training sessions too, and these became the mainstay of the SPYC winter program with Winter Workshops held on a monthly basis covering everything from navigation to splicing difficult bits of “string”. These sessions were, and continue to be, very well attended.
In the past there had been a fitting out supper, a laying up suppler and a Christmas party as well, but it was felt that three big social events were too many, and the idea of following the AGM with a get-together was born. The thought of a free lunch after the meeting would hopefully encourage members to attend the AGM! Having said that, SPYC’s AGMs have always been well attended anyway.
The last few years have seen a number of changes and developments. In 2023 overseas trips were resumed, having dropped off the radar for a few years. The first one was to France, with some “interesting” weather, and in 2024 a large group of boats sailed to the Netherlands. These summer cruises have become one of the main events in the calendar. As well as longer trips what were previously termed Crew Pool days have become Sailing days, open to all who enjoy a day sail in company with other boats, and if possible, take a crew pool member with them. There is at least one night time sail each year which encourages wary members to try this in company with others.
2025 will be SPYC’s 35th anniversary and we look forward to spending the next 35 years enjoying the pleasures of being out on the water with like-minded folks.
