History
RNSYS lays claim to being the oldest yacht club in North America, with its beginnings dating back to the establishment of the Halifax Yacht Club in July 1837.
The first clubhouse was built in 1860, the same year the then Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII visited Halifax. A keen yachtsman himself, he presented the club with its most treasured trophy, the Prince of Wales Cup. The Prince of Wales later added his name to the application to Queen Victoria to use the prefix “Royal” to the club’s name. This was approved one year later and the club became known as the Royal Halifax Yacht Club.
In 1871, the Royal Halifax Yacht Club carried out a grand aquatic carnival.
The club underwent a great deal of upheaval and change between the years 1875 and 1922 when the RHYC became the present RNSYS, and relocated it’s clubhouse to the breakwater of Halifax Harbour. In 1889, Robert John Edwards & Henry John Webster designed a Queen Anne Revival-style clubhouse for the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Club in Halifax.
In 1903, Raymond Lake Lessel designed a major addition to the Club House on Pleasant Street which included a Boat Shop, 1906.
In 1921, Walter Johannes Busch designed the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron club house at Point Pleasant park.
In 1940-41, the Royal Canadian Navy Reserves scheme for training yacht club members developed the first central registry system.
Due to internal squabbling among its members, RNSYS ceased to exist for several years in the 1950's.
The club was moved again to make way for the new container terminal in 1966, and relocated to the present property on the Northwest Arm which members of the Squadron had acquired some years earlier.
Along with the Boston Yacht Club, RNSYS sponsors the biennial Marblehead Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race to Halifax Ocean Race which was first sailed in 1939. RNSYS were also the club-of-record for the “True North” America’s Cup challenge in 1984, and for “Canada II” in 1987.
As part of the Club's 150th anniversary celebrations in 1986, Nancie Erhard wrote 'First in its class : the story of the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron'.
In 2005, Christopher J. Hooper wrote 'The application of benchmarking to determine the direction of the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron boat handling and storage systems.'
Read more about this topic: Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)