The Annual Blackballing

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1082, 20 September 1930, Page 18

The Annual Blackballing

Humorous Side of Election to Exclusive R.Y.S

ui«-i SLIGHTLY morbid curiosity is much in VjHrVl evidence among the inner circle at Cowes Jr CcriflP'Tk just now (wrote Charles Graves in the “Daily Mail” last month). It concerns the fate of a number of distinguished people who have put up for election to the Royal Yacht Squadron, the annual meeting of which is about to ta The Pla caiididates themselves are naturally on tenter-hooks, however carefully they are concealed. And yet it is no disgrace to be blackballed In the Royal Yacht Squadron. i In this the R.Y.S. is unique. Even j to be put up for election is almost aj

f greater honour than being elected to . any other club. In the past many very famous per- i sonages have been blackballed who could have romped into any other club —with a very, very few exceptions. Why they were blackballed officially remains a mystery. But elderly tongues wag and the reason, if ■ slightly garbled, usually leaks out. Backwash Not so long ago three men were blackballed in the same year, one allegedly because his secretary had announced publicly in advance that he was putting up for election; j another, so they say, because the backwash from his speed-boat had nearly swamped two elderly members]

in a dinghy; the third, it i 3 repeated, because someone took exception to the length and the pungency of tho t-igars that he invariably smoked. This young man, a Guards officer, realising, as I say, that it is no ais-

grace to be blackballed by the R.Y.S., put up the following year and was duly elected.

It is a fact that many candidates are blackballed by members who i have never set eyes on them in their lives, but who disliked their fathers for some petty mannerism fifty or sixty years before. On the other hand, brewers and distillers are always welcomed —the names of Guinness, Winch, Gretton, and Jameson all figure in the membership list. The Qualifications Cynics say that the greatest risk of | avoiding a blackball is held by canai- ! dates who are totally unknown to the members. A country squire, realisi ing this, is said to have had the Royal Yacht Squadron entered in Lloyd's Register as one of the club 3 to which j he belonged two months before the i election took place. And he got in. ; He was a brewer. The only qualifications necessary { for membership are the ability to j pay—i.e., 100 guineas entrance fee—- ! and the ownership of a yacht of at i least 15 tons. This latter qualifieaI tion was evaded easily by the exis- ; tence until not long ago of two decrepit 15 tonners that lay on the , mud-berths of a yard at Cowes. These I were soid, rebought, and sold again ! by judicious owners (both of whom | were members of the Squadron until

one day an enterprising new member actually tried to go for a sail in his new purchase, with the result that

the whole of the were pulled off, leaving only the hull behind when i towing operations began. ] Altogether there are living 250 men ■I on the roll of honour of those who have survived the ordeal by blackball. Yachting Doesn't Matter : Large numbers of the members are soldiers; other.? include propellermakers, manufacturers of automatic brakes, and so forth; and all naval ; officers above the rank of captain can ■ ! become honorary members. The faet, however, that you are a i keen yachtsman has nothing to do < with your chance. Indeed, there are more members in the Royal Yacht Squadron who know nothing about yachting, so I am informed by one of the .greatest yachting authorities alive, than in any other yachting club in Great Britian. Despite all this, the ability to flv the White Ensign (if your yacht is a 30-tonner or better) and call the Royal Yacht Squadron “my little club at ; Cowes" (as one of the senior members ; once described it to me) still remains i the social goal of countless people—- ; whether they know a jib-boom or not—- ! and cnee again on election day there ; may be candidates butchered to make j a Bank holiday.