The sailing eras

1891 to 1900

The founding years

The defining change: Mark Foy's new rules: coloured sail emblems, a handicap start, and a triangular course, all designed so spectators could follow the racing.

The 1890s sailing environment was the pinnacle of conservatism, and along came Mark Foy, a Sydney draper determined that open boat sailing should be enjoyed by everybody regardless of financial and social background. Banned from the 1892 National Regatta for carrying coloured emblems, the Squadron ran its own opposition regatta, with Foy financing the advertising and donating the whole prize money.

At first the Squadron raced all lengths of open boat, from 6-footers to 24-footers. The standing joke was that there were only two rules: the boats had to be 18 feet long, and the race started at a quarter to three. The first race, on 24 October 1891, included Foy's 20-footer Kannanook and champion sailor Chris Webb's Mantura.

1900 to 1935

The big boat era

The defining change: The 18-footer comes to dominate the open boat classes: huge sail plans, crews of a dozen or more, and following ferries packed with spectators and punters.

At their peak more than thirty 18-footers raced each week, followed by crowds of spectators and punters in chartered ferries. 18-footer sailing attracted as great a following as horseracing, with prize money for the winners and bookies on the ferries. The skippers were the rock stars of sport in Sydney, and thousands lined the harbour to watch.

These were the heavily crewed, big-sail wooden boats whose replicas the club sails today: gaff rigs, ringtails set in light air, and crews who played first grade rugby in winter and sailed all summer, which is why the crews still wear football jumpers.

1935 to 1950

The split and the war years

The defining change: The 1935 split in 18-footer racing: a breakaway league forms at Double Bay to race lighter, faster boats, while the Squadron holds to the traditional class.

In 1935 came the split in 18-footer racing, when a breakaway league was set up at Double Bay to race a lighter, more lightly crewed style of boat. The Squadron carried on with the traditional class. The Second World War then thinned the fleets and took a generation of sailors away, as the First had a generation earlier: the club's Honor Roll carries 155 names from that earlier war.

The boats of this period, including 1930s champions like Aberdare and the postwar boats that followed, are among the hulls the club's replica fleet keeps sailing.

1950 to 1965

The postwar champions

The defining change: Plywood, lighter hulls and smaller crews transform the class, and the traditional big boats leave the water.

The 1950s brought lighter construction and smaller crews, and champions whose names are still on the club's boats and trophies: Myra Too's 1951 world title, Scot's five Australian championships and the 1958 J.J. Giltinan world title among them. By the 1960s the heavy traditional boats had left the water, and the class evolved toward the skiffs that would eventually become today's carbon fibre machines.

1965 to 1993

The historic revival

The defining change: Sailors and boatbuilders begin recreating the lost boats: the club commits to sailing replicas of the traditional 18-footers rather than following the modern class.

As the modern 18-footer became a professional, sponsored machine, a group of sailors, boatbuilders and historians turned the other way: back to the traditional boats. Replicas of the famous hulls began to take shape, built by hand to the old designs and dedicated to the people who sailed and loved the originals. The club became the home of this fleet, racing them under the original rules with coloured sail insignia and handicap starts.

1993 to today

The replica fleet

The defining change: The fleet reaches eleven historic replicas, each a faithful recreation of a specific original hull, sailed every summer Saturday from Careening Cove.

Today the club sails eleven historic 18-footer replicas, each recreating a specific original: Aberdare, Alruth, Australia, Australia IV, Britannia, Myra Too, Scot, Tangalooma, The Mistake, Top Weight and Yendys. Each carries a dedication painted on the boat to a named person, and each is maintained by the club's own boatshed volunteers. Racing runs from October to Easter, with a handicap start so the fleet finishes together, exactly as Mark Foy designed it in 1891.