Skip To Content

16 March 2026

Growing partnerships and participation

How a coastal club in the North East is driving engagement in yacht racing

Club overview

Scarborough Yacht Club in North Yorkshire is located in a lighthouse building on the central pier of the town’s colourful harbour. The club offers a busy all-year round competitive programme ranging from round-the-cans in South Bay to offshore races across the North Sea, along with an active cruising section and social calendar.

Identifying the challenge

With an ageing demographic and a traditional yacht club environment, Scarborough YC identified a need to ensure its activities were sustainable for the future. 

The challenges included looking at developing pathways for young sailors, exploring new ways to attract and retain members, and succession planning.

Image credit Richard Craven

Implementing a solution 

Club development planning led to a number of actions, many of which have been supported by forging partnerships with other organisations and clubs.

Cadets

The club has revitalised its Cadets section for children and young people. Although the club is not an RYA Recognised Training Centre and its core activity is yacht sailing, it provides opportunities for its young members to develop dinghy sailing skills in partnership with Wykeham Lakes NE Watersports Centre, Scarborough Sea Cadets and Filey Sailing Club. 

University links

The club is working with Coventry University, which has a campus in Scarborough, to promote sailing, and has a longstanding relationship with Leeds University sailing club, making available two keelboats through the Hunter 707 class association – another partnership – which students use for club racing and national events further afield.

RYA expertise

Club members attend RYA Connected conferences for Affiliates to tap into RYA expertise, network with other clubs, share ideas and pick up new ones. A club member is also the RYA Regional Rep for planning, and a member of the RYA North Regional Volunteer Team.  

Training

To overcome barriers to getting on the water, in addition to its Cadets, the club has its own programme run to RYA standards to promote crewing skills such spinnaker, foredeck, seamanship around a boat, and in winter topics like cooking and provisioning.

Innovating

The club is on the lookout for new ways of doing things: it was among the first to adopt a new rating system for grassroots yacht racing; and in 2025 moved its annual regatta from August Bank Holiday to mid-month based on tides to provide a better racing window. There is also a busy social calendar including talks and quizzes, dinner dances and live music.

Image credit Fred Tiles

YTC (Yacht Time Correction)

Having previously used its own version of PY handicaps for dual scoring alongside IRC for performance racing, Scarborough YC enthusiastically adopted for all its racing activities the new YTC rating system when it launched in 2023.

YTC powered by the RORC Rating Office provides a free, simple rating system, using key boat measurements such as hull and waterline length, weight, draught and sail areas. An online portal has data for over 500 production boats to help owners apply for their certificate.

Unlike handicaps that are responsive to performance, YTC ratings do not change from race to race, and club members welcomed the idea of having a ‘there’s your numbers, there’s your rating’ system based on a straightforward and transparent calculation.

The system also makes it easy for race management: YTC boats can be imported into results software and there is also an RYA YTC Pursuit Race Calculator, whereby a race officer is able to enter the club’s YTC-rated boats to automatically work out start times.

As well as for club racing, Scarborough YC finds YTC useful for smaller and one-off pennant events, and for its North Sea Race alongside IRC, which makes it accessible for cruiser-racers and for visiting boats, including from the Netherlands. 

Insights and tips

The goal at Scarborough YC has been to keep what is best from its heritage while bringing its activities up to date and in step with the need to inspire both existing and new members.

Nick Taylor, former commodore and an RYA Dinghy Instructor for the club, said: “Scarborough is a deprived area with a huge cohort of people who think that sailing is something that other people do, but not them, and they don’t realise there’s a yacht club in the lighthouse building in the harbour, so we’re trying to make some inroads into that perception.

“We’ve done some specific and targeted bits of work to grow the membership which is changing the atmosphere of the club in a good way. We’ve reinvigorated our Cadet section and have been reaching out to raise awareness that we’re here. We’re keen to welcome people and also have our own training syllabus so that it isn’t a dark art to step onto a yacht. 

“We wanted to start getting younger people into the building, and it’s made for a more lively and fun atmosphere. There were also younger people already in the club who hadn’t thought about stepping into committee roles before, and it’s been good to have them more involved in running the club because they bring families. The club is the healthiest it’s been in recent memory and is quite a bit more vibrant now.”

Nick added that the club was now looking forward to attending the next RYA Connected Conference to gain new insights for the future: “We’ve found the help from the RYA has been fantastic. We should all work to back our sport and the RYA provides that opportunity by responding to the temperature of what is happening nationally while supporting us to strengthen our activities regionally and at the grassroots.”

Useful links

Accessibility