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SCMP Reporter

THE Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club passed two milestones last year - its centenary and news of an impending move from the Kellett Island site which has been its home since its establishment in 1894.

  It is now home to more than 60 yachts, which compete year-round in races of all classes.

  And its land space has expanded so that it is now part of Hong Kong Island.

  It has been the launching site of round-the-world sailing attempts.

  According to one irate resident of Causeway Bay writing in the Letters column of the South China Morning Post, it was also the scene of some spectacularly noisy parties and balls.

  The club was set up on what was originally a small island, just beside what is now the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter.

  Sailing dinghies and rowing were the chief fascination for the early members - among them Bertie Rasmussen, who died last year at 90.

  Rasmussen was one of a strong contingent of Danish expatriates who were active in the club during the 1920s. He joined in 1923 at the invitation of another member and fellow Dane, Holger Dreyer, who was looking for rowers to take part in one of the earliest regattas to be held in Shanghai.

  At that time, as Rasmussen fondly recalled in 1993, there were only sculls, pairs and fours in the Hong Kong rowing stable and their hosts, the Shanghai Rowing Club, sent down an 'eight' for them to practise in.

  The Danish connections of the club's early years are immortalised in the replica statue of Copenhagen's famous Little Mermaid which sits on the small patio jutting out into the harbour.

  She is only half the size but tradition has it she was made at the same foundry, using a copy of the original mould created by Edward Eriksen.

  The club's activities now include prestigious yacht races such as the bi-annual Corum Cup, the annual Round-the-Island Race, and the notorious Yacht Club Ball.

  In 1993, it was the launching site for the first round-the-world sailing attempt to begin in Hong Kong, by businessman Terence Lam.

  Earlier this year, it was the venue for a successful challenge for the Guinness Book of Records, when five oarsmen, all club members, rowed 100,000 kilometres in less than 71 hours.

  These days, the RHKYC provides sailing, rowing and general partying facilities for its members - of whom about 80 per cent are estimated to be expatriates.

  Those found in the bar of the club house last night had many views on the possible change of name.

  When asked if he would mind having it changed, a member, who is a corporate lawyer, said: 'Yes, I do. But what can I do? You have to know who's changing it. When you ask the other gweilos, I think you will find out that we all feel the same here.'   Another club member, unaware of the proposal, said he would vote for it. 'It's all a democratic process. I will support it.'   The Commodore, Tony Scott, said the club needed one month to tell members of the name change proposal and find out how they felt about it.

  'We have been using the title 'royal' for 100 years now, so it is a bit poignant now that we have to consider whether or not to drop it,' he said.

  He said he believed some members would be quite upset at the change, while others would take an easy approach.

  And, in addition to the identity change, the club must now decide whether to move to a new site, when the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter is virtually filled in as part of the Wan Chai reclamation programme.



Establishment all at sea for more than a century