Advent of Sail Racing in Bermuda
With the build up of the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island, at the West End, and of the Army garrison, at first in the East End, at St. George's, though the military headquarters eventually moved to Prospect Camp at the centre of the colony, the idle navy and army officers, most ex-Public School boys, introduced a number of team sports to the colony. The best known of these were football, cricket, and rugby. At English schools and colleges, however, many had also competed in rowing, and an attempt was made to introduce this sport to Bermuda, also. The rough, wind-driven Atlantic proved unsuitable, however, and the officers soon took to employing the local work boats for sail racing. These large sloops, with their crews, were hired for weekends, and sloop racing became very popular in Bermuda throughout the century. In time, sloops were designed and built specifically for racing, though they still relied on large, hired crews. The military officers were the driving force behind the creation of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (RBYC), in 1844, and, as with cricket, the sport developed an East End versus West End dynamic, resulting from the polar locations of the two headquarters.
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