A New Sailing Club
It was on 25th May 1899 that H Winship Jr. an auctioneer, valuer and estate agent in Cambridge called a meeting with a view to establishing a Sailing Club in the city. Mr W.H. Whitehead was elected to the chair and it was agreed that a club should be established, that it should be called the Cam Sailing Club, and that a report to that effect should be sent to the newspapers, and a further meeting held to elect Officers.

The year may be significant since it was in 1899 that the ‘99 Rowing Club was established. There had clearly before this time been a group of sailing enthusiasts with a variety of boats on the river, but now the time had come to formalise their activities. The River Thames had had established sailing clubs such as Upper Thames for over twenty years and the sport had become prestigious with specially developed craft including the Thames “A” and “B” raters. The time had come for the Cam to emulate the Thames and establish river sailing in the city.

Thus it was that at the second meeting of the Club held on the 14th June G.F.Whitmore was elected as the first Commodore, W.G. Collin as the first Vice-Commodore, H. Worman as Treasurer, and J. Winship Jr. as Secretary. The Committee was George Heath, H. C. Banham, H. F. Amps, and H. J. Hayles. All names to play a significant role in the development of the Club over the years.

At a meeting of the Committee on 28th June, a burgee was agreed which was the same as the one used at present except that the letter “C” was originally in black. A list of rules was established, including perhaps the most important: “The object of the Club shall be to encourage the building, improvement and sailing of small boats”. This aim still appears in our rule book today. A subscription of 2/6d was established.

There must have been considerable interest in the Club since the first membership list shows no fewer than 58 members with 31 boats. Not all of these were sailing boats quite a few being power driven.