Club History 1979 to 2000

1979: The Vanuatu Cruising Yacht Club was initially formed with its base at the Rossi Hotel. The then Manager, Bill Webb, who himself was a keen yachtie, along with a few other interested people formed the first committee.
A Constitution was made up and adopted formulating the initial start of the Vanuatu Cruising Yacht Club.

The club’s general concept was to have fun races and family outings and generally enjoy the sport of sailing.
An International Yachting Regatta, now well known as the Musket Cove to Port Vila Regatta, saw its first year of competition, organised by Dick Smith of Mololailai Fiji, who then flew to Port Vila to conduct the finish.

Mr Tom Bayer of Pacific International Trust Company of Port Vila, when approached by Dick Smith, offered to be a major sponsor of this Regatta and the Line Honours PITCO Cup is keenly competed for each year.

The Vanuatu Cruising Yacht Club offered assistance with this Regatta, but it was not until 1986 that this event was co-organised as a joint effort.

1983: The owners of Yachting World Port Vila, Ken and Elsie Berkley and their then Manager Chris Sulis, operated a small fleet of Charter Yachts, which were used to make up the numbers in the local races.

Mr Berkley then decided to erect a Restaurant, which is now known Internationally as The Waterfront Bar & Grill.
Chris Sulis was responsible for the construction of this fine building and Ken offered the VCYC the use of this as their base and as of today, is still called the Home of the VCYC, although we now have a permanent club office/club rooms nearby.

Through the latter part of 1983 and early 1984, the club foundered through lack of interest.

1984: A few more sailing expatriates had moved to Port Vila and the club was again formed by the driving force of Roy Ernst and Chris Sulis and a few interested sailors.

From this committee and through the generous support, of the then Manager of the Waterfront Bar & Grill, Roy Ernst, the club began to grow from strength to strength.

Roy not only helped organise races but also offered sponsorship and it was mainly through his efforts that the club survived at this time.

August 1984 saw the inaugural Sydney – Port Vila Yacht Race sponsored by Ken Berkley and boasted a fleet of 60 yachts. Ken Berkley’s yacht was called Kamber and Rob Agius hired SY Helsal and named her Spirit of Vanuatu for the race.This event along with the Musket Cove Regatta, were the two initial International Races involving the club.

An agreement was reached with Dick Smith of Musket Cove Fiji to have the VCYC as their Port Vila base and joint organisors of his Regatta.

1985 – 1989: The club maintained its interest in sailing and the membership steadily grew, but still without a home of its own, hosted the Annual Musket Cove to Port Vila Regatta. Reciprocal rights were offered and accepted, with Musket Cove Yacht Club.

The club began a fortnightly competition, but our sailing population was very transient. This at times had to be reviewed through the fact that there was a declining number of available competing yachts.

A monthly luncheon called “Meals on Keels” was organised and was held on the last Thursday of each month and attracted increasing numbers of members.

A sister club affiliation was offered and accepted, by the Royal Papua Yacht Club in Port Moresby.

1990: This was the year of Vanuatu’s 10th Independence Anniversary and the Government asked the support of all sporting clubs to endeavour to make this a year to remember for the people of Vanuatu.

The VCYC through Ross Wilson, Commodore, contacted Cercle Nautique Caledonie Noumea, (CNC) requesting their support in holding a race in June, from Noumea to Port Vila. 9 yachts competed and a great time was had by all, to the extent CNC asked if they could return each year. Being a small club with limited resources, we offered this to be a Bi-Annual event. This was agreed by CNC and this event is still held.

The club was approached by Jimmy Cornell of World Cruising London, asking our support in hosting a fleet of yachts, who were to race around the world through the Trade wind routes. This fleet was to arrive in Port Vila in August 1991 so a lot of work was suddenly at hand.

This year saw the record number of 65 yachts in the Musket Cove – Port Vila Regatta.

A closer bond developed between CNC and the VCYC and CNC offered reciprocal rights to all of our members.

To enable us to offer a better service to not only the regular cruising yacht person, whose numbers were increasing annually, the VCYC leased an office near the Waterfront Bar & Grill and offered a book swap, photocopy, telephone fax and general local information centre.

This office saw it’s busiest time during the season, with the arrival of Jimmy Cornells “Europa 92” World Cruising fleet. The fleet called into Vanuatu in July 1991.

1992: Following the success of the Europa 92 visit, Jimmy Cornell asked if we would host this event again in 1994, to which we agreed.

CNC returned in June with a fleet of 15 yachts.

Musket Cove returned in September with 45 yachts.

Possible land purchase for future clubrooms was looked at and the Government of the day agreed that the VCYC was an arm in the development of tourism in Vanuatu.

1993: This year was used to raise funds and consolidate the club in preparation for 1994, which was to be the biggest and busiest year to date in the club’s history.

The committee decided to hold an Annual Awards Dinner Dance this year, where we presented the certificates and trophies won during the season. This was a roaring success, with both Vanuatu’s President – Fred Timakata and Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman of Vanuatu, in attendance as honoured guests.

Land for clubrooms was pursued with little success.

1994: During the early months of 1994, Japanese Sponsors, Mr Hitoshi Fukuma and Miss Midori Ito approached the club asking if we would organise International Yacht Races on their behalf, over the next 4 years. These events were to be run under the sponsors business name of “Marine Cup” and US$1,000,000:00 was made progressively available.

Two races were requested during 1994, one being a local race during Independence and the other an off-shore race. Given such short notice, we called on CNC, as we already had worked with them before and planned a race for October. The sponsors, and the VCYC Commodore – Ross Wilson - flew to Noumea for the briefing and start of the race, returning to Port Vila for the finish and Presentation Night.

This year’s events were;

* June – Noumea to Port Vila Yacht Race – Marine Cup 18 yachts
* July – Marine Cup Int Sponsored Yacht Race -Independence 19 yachts
* August – Europa 94 fleet – Around the World Yacht Race 31 yachts
* September- Annual Musket Cove to Port Vila Regatta 44 yachts
* October- Bi-Annual Noumea to Port Vila Yacht Race 14 yachts

This was indeed the busiest year for the club as we still conducted our fortnightly local races as well.

1995: Marine Cup then asked that we start organising another International Yacht Race and Ross Wilson flew to Kerikeri in NZ, following several telephone calls, to finalise and detail the requirements of the sponsor. We asked if they would support our club and the sponsor, by organising the NZ end, in conjunction with VCYC, for a race from New Zealand to Vanuatu, the first such event for 10 years.

A very experienced and well organised committee in Kerikeri agreed to this and the event was held, started by the Sponsor, on June 10th 1995. Ron and Joy Olds of VCYC accompanied Hitoshi Fukuma and Midori Ito to Kerikeri for the briefing, cocktail party and race start.

The Government of Vanuatu was contacted and they offered their full support in our quest to develop tourism through yachting.

Owing to our continued and considerable involvement in off-shore racing, CYC Sydney offered the VCYC sister-ship and affiliation between to two clubs, which was accepted with pride.

During the latter part of 1995 the VCYC also affiliated with the New Zealand Yachting Federation who are available for any yacht racing dispute, yacht racing rules and general assistance should it deemed to be required.

1996: A new committee carried on the good works of the club and promoted sailing with fun and competition amongst interested parties.

An endeavour was made to arrange sponsorship for the purchase Optimus Dinghies from NZ so that we could carry out sailing tuition for children and offer assistance to local Ni-Vanuatu people in water safety and sailing expertise.
Unfortunately this floundered as the club from whom we had arranged to purchase these dinghies no longer wished to sell them.

It was also agreed that a concerted effort be made to locate a more secure tenure by purchasing our own property.

1997: Musket Cove Regatta was held with continued success.

1998: The club boasted an all-girl crewed and owned yacht (SY Friande) this year, although they have been known to have the services of a “Toy Boy” on board for the heavy work.
Musket Cove fleet returned.

1999: This year in early July, we had Jimmy Cornell’s “Millenium Odyssey” fleet of 27 yachts spend time in our country and John Ellis of World Cruising London again visited Vanuatu.

This fleet stayed in Vila for 1 week during which time we held the Presentation Night Then they cruised through the islands to Santo, from where they departed for Cairns.

Musket Cove came through again in September with the club offering continued events and activities for the visitors.

Local races were held with increasing numbers regularly competing.

Musket Cove Regatta came through again.

A local Van Air aircraft ( Twin Otter ) crashed in our harbour on the evening of May 8th and many yachts and members assisted with the search for survivors, with no success.

Roy Ernst of the Rossi Restaurant, with his family relocated to Bundaberg in Australia, organised the first ever Vanuatu to Bundaberg – Point to Point sail for cruising yachts allowing them a 12 day time to arrive in Bundaberg where social activities where arranged through Roy Ernst. Roy spends 6 months in Vanuatu and 6 months in Bundaberg and continues to run this event in conjunction with the VCYC.

We managed to obtain the use of 4 Optimus Dinghies for free 10 – to 12 year old children's sailing tuition which we conduct every Saturday morning.

Extensive boat maintenance and life jacket purchases was carried out to ensure the continued safety of the children.

2000: Owing to development changes at the Waterfront area, our lease was not renewed and we sought new premises.

Our stalwart Vice Commodore and Manger of Tusker Brewery, offered the committee a room at his new bar called the Anchor Inn which is situated at the Northern end of town.

A combined working bee and we moved everything in one day then installed 6 new flag poles along the front area of the Anchor Inn.

To raise funds for the club we commenced Friday Night raffles selling tickets for 2 – 3 meat trays each week. These raffles proved very successful and the committee decided to maintain this source of income each week with a duty roster system having two people sell tickets each Friday Night.

The club continued to run its local yacht race program and with the continued assistance of sponsors, we generally hold 25 local races during the season.

The Annual Awards dinner was again held at the Sunset Bar at the Melanesian.

The Bi-Annual Kerikeri to Port Vila, Marine Cup sponsored race was cancelled owing to lack of entries.

The Annual Auckland to Fiji race was offered a NZ$31,000:00 line honours purse, which drew the main off-shore competitors. Unfortunately this race was called off when the yachts were 200 miles out of NZ owing to the Coup in Fiji and the fact that the military and police in Fiji indicated that crew’s security could be at risk and that they could not guarantee the safety of the competitors.

With the Solomons having a major civil disturbance and Fiji with her problems, we are experiencing much larger boats and yachts spending their sailing time in Vanuatu.

Local races have been badly affected by extreme weather conditions and our off-shore series timetable had to be amended until more stable weather continues.

This year the Musket Cove fleet was jointly sponsored by Vanuatu Brewing of Port Vila and arrived again in September. This was we hoped to be the largest fleet yet as it is the first in the new Millennium and Dick Smith owing to his deteriorating health, has employed a full time Manager to run this event.

The fleet size ended up with 37 yachts only but a great time was held by all.

CNC had requested a date of race change to October 21st when they will race from Noumea to Baie du Prony then on October 22nd – Baie du Prony to Port Vila.

Vanuatu to Bundaberg – Point to Point sail was held with increasing success and the sponsors in Bundaberg are now becoming more involved.

A raffle was run to cover the costs of our clubs operation and in particular the continued repair costs of the sailing Optimus dinghies, which generate no income.
 

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