Racing
In 1851, the club's commodore, visiting the Great Exhibition, issued a challenge for the squadron’s £100 Cup for a race around the island. The New York based ‘’America’’, representing the New York Yacht Club triumphed in this race giving its name to one of the oldest and best known trophies The America's Cup. The victory was witnessed by Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales, later commodore of the club and Edward VII.
The site is also used as the start of the Round the Island Race which occurs annually.
During the American Civil War Deerhound RYS witnessed the fight between USS Kearsarge and the Confederate cruiser CSS Alabama. Gazelle RYS rescued the Empress Eugenie at the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the squadron yachts supplied British soldiers in the Crimean War.
The German Kaiser brought the 1887 America’s Cup challenger Thistle, to Cowes in 1892 which encouraged the Prince of Wales to build Britannia, one of the most successful racing yachts of all time.
Read more about this topic: Royal Yacht Squadron
Famous quotes containing the word racing:
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)