The Met Office predicts a hard winter this year. How often have we heard that before, yet it seems this time they may be right. The perversity of global warming seems to produce climatic conditions which are contrary to the general trend.

On the East Coast, over the past few years, the winds have appeared to get stronger than in summers past, the tides a little higher, the shifting sands and shingle a shade more active, the summer weather a little less summery. For some, the winter is a period of laying-up, planning for the coming season, poring over charts and tide tables, re-reading favourite books and manuals on home and foreign coasts and ports, recalling last season’s successes and disappointments. For others, the East Coast included, it’s a time of continued activity. Fast cruises, winter gatherings at marinas and at anchorages for a weekend every month during those short and dark days when the sea is almost empty of sails and the sunsets glimmer through the late afternoon mists, spectacular but cold, their warmth withheld until the distant spring.


Ashore the Club’s activities increase. The Trafalgar dinner, laying-up supper, Christmas party, carol service, new members’ evenings, Burns’ Night, fitting-out dinner, skippers and crews. The Clubroom resounds to the social gatherings while, outside, the river ebbs and flows twice a day as it has done for ages past, carrying the hopes and dreams of its people down to the sea and across the oceans. Where once wharves and warehouses stood, now there are offices, shops, restaurants, homes and the Club. A unique location on Three Cranes Walk at the foot of Bell Wharf Lane, we enjoy an enviable position unrivalled on the Thames by any other yacht club. Yet, I think, we take our privilege too much for granted. Driven by the cold winds of recession, we contemplate a diminishing income much as the sailor contemplates the distant fading coast on a windless winter’s night and the sense of isolation that it brings.


Yet our ship is not alone upon this dark and chilly sea. We are surrounded by others viewing the same receding outlook. Each must decide how best to deal with the navigation needed to a safe and secure port, to the warmth and security of the distant shore. A bad decision, an error in calculation, a weakness in the ship, and all may be lost never to be recovered. Each vessel, each place, is unique. A rescue may be made.

Another ship saving the sea-tossed souls but, however welcoming the crew and safe the deck, the feeling of relief and well-being gradually diminishes to leave a sense of loss, of the irreversible nature of the situation, of never again being masters of our ship, our own fate, our own destiny.


So it is with our Club. For 36 years it crewed with other ships, met in different places until in 1962, a clubhouse was built on the banks of the river – our own vessel, to navigate ourselves. A sense of belonging, a place of education, refuge, security, conviviality. Ships are costly creatures, so are clubhouses. Ours occupies a special position by the river, one that is the admiration of many others. One that, if it founders, will never again be possible to find in this special place; by the side of our heritage and among the other ships of commerce in the City that have sailed with us through good and bad times, fair weather and foul. The decision to have a place of our own all those years ago was not an easy one and many thought it was not a good thing. The sale of the head lease in 1986 and the return on board in 1991 seemed to secure our position for the foreseeable future. The major refit of the offices above impinged heavily on our ability to function in the early years of this century but, by judicious navigation, we weathered that storm and emerged with the prospect of a brighter future.


Now we are once more fighting the elements. We could abandon ship, go on board another vessel, crew with other people, pay for our continued voyage into the future. Or we could all work together and weather the winter storms, man the vessel in a way which shows we care for her.
That seemed to be the view at the meeting in October: a desire to stay with the ship, to give the help required to stay afloat and see it through to calmer seas and sunnier days. We cannot go back to the pre-1962 era. The situation is different now, the crew changed, the ways of working not the same. We need to pull together, to do our utmost to succeed and to bring our ship safely home to port. She’s worth the effort, worth saving. I urge you to give every ounce of your support to those responsible for navigating us through these dark and stormy winter days and seas so that we might again enjoy the season of summer and the good sailing days ahead on board our fine and unique home.