The East coast of England, and the County of Essex in particular, can be a cold, blustery place even in summer; with strong, gale-force winds blowing off the North Sea.

The small, ancient town of Burnham-on-Crouch lies on the banks of the River Crouch, and owes much of its existence to fishing - the oysters of Burnham were once renowned for their flavour - and to agri-culture, the tidal river carrying most farm produce by sailing barges to the London markets.

The first yachting club to plant a foot in Burnham was the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club (RCYC), which opened a branch of its Erith, Kent club on Burnham's quayside in 1892, when it took a room at the White Hart Inn. The RCYC was joined in 1893 by the London Sailing Club (LSC); then in March 1895 the Burnham Yacht Club (now the Royal Burnham Yacht Club) was formed.

ATAHAULPA: a G.U. Laws design from 1910,
built at Burnham. A cutter of 6 tons,
she is in fine condition today
Photo: J.Alexander

Until this time, pleasure sailing on the River Crouch had been confined to a handful of larger yachts; however, the opening of a railway branch line from London in 1889 had the immediate effect of trebling the membership of the Clubs. London yachtsmen could now catch a train on a Friday after-noon from town, and be on board their yachts with time for a race before dinner was served in the Clubhouse. It was all very civilised;

The boatbuilders and allied tradespeople quickly began to set up their yards and work-shops along the quay and on adjoining land, and the fledgling industry grew rapidly; before the year 1900 there were several yards busy building yachts for the arriving yachtsmen, as well as the sailmakers, riggers and other interested people;
The three clubs began their racing programmes, each one catering for a slightly differing sailor; the RCYC introducing their own One Design -the Dabchick Class - a very early example of One-Design thinking.
The Dabchick was designed by the soon-to-be-famous Linton Hope; the boats were LOA 20 feet, and LWL 15 feet; They had roller foresails and centreboards; in their second season they were fitted with lead keels;

The cost of a Dabchick in 1897 was £42 complete…

At the same time as the RCYC were racing their Dabchicks, the London Sailing Club and the Burnham Yacht Club were just getting started, the BYC promo-ting various handicap races for yachts from 1 to 14 tons.

The town’s famous "Burnham Week" for yachting was first introduced in August 1893, was organised by the London Sailing Club and offered races initially for half-raters, 1-raters and cruisers, but by 1897 the "linear-raters" took over, with their 18- and 24-foot racing yachts, with some very exciting (and very wet) racing.

In 1907, of course, the first of the new Metre-Class boats made their appearance - the first to appear at Burnham being the Linton Hope-designed 6-metre HINEMOA, quickly to be follo-wed by several Burnham-built Sixes in 1908 such as DORMY, GIPTA and others, plus the Anker-designed 6-metre THE ALIEN. The oldest of the Burnham yards were King’s, Prior’s and the yard of the Burnham Yacht Building Company, whose boss was H.C. (Harry) Smith, and the mana-ger of whom was Gilbert U.

Laws - who had already shown his skill at the drawing-board and who was one of Britain's most gifted yacht designers. Cranfield, the sailmakers, had a sail loft almost next door; and everybody with a financial interest in yachting had more work than they could handle; Meanwhile; the London Sailing Club had changed its name to The Eastern Yacht Club of England in 1907, and within four years was to be amalgamated with the Royal Corinthian. In 1907 also, the Crouch Yacht Club was formed; The fourth club, the Burnham Sailing club, was formed in 1930.
Racing in the Metre classes was extremely popular - particularly the 6 and 12-metre classes.

The 7, 8, 9 and 10 metre boats seemed to prefer the ports of Cowes or Portsmouth, but there were several notable races bet-ween the big 15 and 23-metre yachts further out in the Crouch estuary. At one time between 1908 and 1911, Burnham’s fleets of Metre boats were larger than those of both Cowes AND the Clyde in Scotland.

The fact that Burnham had been responsible for the design, construction and the crew of the world’s first 6-metre Olympic Gold Medal winner (1908) put the hitherto sleepy Essex riverside town on the map. And a few war-weary years later; Burnham yachtsmen repeated the feat when Wright (and his wife Dorothy); Machin and Maddison won the 7-metre Olympic Gold at the 1920 Ostende Games; Between these events; Britain’s (the World’s) first 6-metre yacht, GYPAETOS in 1912, was fitted with a Bermuda rig, a fashion that soon began to appear in most other ports…

Burnham also had her fair share of famous yachting names -– and millionaires. Noel Pemberton Billing was a millionaire and a Member of Parliament, and owned several large yachts; The Courtauld family were also very keen yachtsmen, two of them racing CHITTABOB III in the ex-24 foot class; Tiny Mitchell, RCYC’s Commodore from 1931 to 1952, was responsible for the founding of the Royal Yachting Association. There were many, many more. Burnham yachtsman "Boy" O’Connor once took over the helm the J Class VELSHEDA in the King George V Cup race at Cowes, and he found himself racing against the King in BRITANNIA;
After "Boy" O’Connor had won, he asked the King’s equerry if there was some way that he could apologise to the King for winning the race. The equerry immediately replied "You could perhaps emigrate…"

The Crouch spawned some very special one-design boats.

Probably the most long-lived have been the East Coast One Design boats. Designed by G.U. Laws and built by W. King’s yard in 1913, nine were laid down.

A tenth was built in 1937 - and all ten are still racing today, a 100 per cent record. They were 30 foot LOA, with a draft of 4 feet and gaff-rigged with 344 square feet of sail. The rig was updated to Bermudan sailplan in 1926:

The Royal Corinthian’s RCYC O.D.s, introduced in 1935 and designed by H.C. Smith of the Burnham Yacht Building Co., were in fact built by several different yards. With a LOA of 22 and a half feet and with a Bermudan sloop rig, they were well built boats, and had exciting sailing characteristics.

Most readers will know the story of the ENDEAVOUR versus RAINBOW match for the 1934 America’s Cup, when the professional crew of the British challenger ENDEAVOUR had refused to sail the big J Class boat to America for the race. What may not be known was that when the owner of ENDEAVOUR, Sir Thomas Sopwith heard this, he asked his friend "Tiny" Mitchell at the Royal Corinthian if he would find him an amateur crew to take ENDEAVOUR to America and race for the Cup.

So the RCYC Commodore arranged for fourteen of the Club’s best yachtsmen to accompany Sir Thomas and his ENDEAVOUR to the USA. It is a well-known fact that ENDEAVOUR won the first two races, but lost the series - the closest that Britain ever came to winning the Cup. This is one comment that was made by one of those amateur yachtsmen in 1934:

"My most endearing memory is that of Tommy Sopwith coming back to Newport after a hard day's sailing, and taking ENDEAVOUR into a crowded anchorage under sail; to place her, stopped dead, with her bow right over the buoy".

POSTSCRIPT. Today, there are more yachts than ever before at Burnham, and sadly, most of them are made of plastic. But here and there amongst the lines of white plastic hulls can be seen the mellow tones of pristine woodwork in all its glory, where the handful of old E.C.O.D’s, R.C.Y.C.OD’s or the lone grace of a Metre yacht still stand proud. I suddenly feel that all is not lost and forgotten: these lovely ladies will outlive us all…