Bridlington and the RYYC


Well I wasn't going to say much about Bridlington apart from the fact that it was cold and muddy! That was until we decided to visit the Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club whose imposing building looks over the harbour. 

Following a cold drizzly day looking at what Bridlington had to offer we went back to the boat for some supper. My impressions of Bridlington were a friendly sort of town trying to bring back some of it’s former glory as a busy seaside resort - and indeed the beach is really impressive tucked nicely into the bay and sheltered from much of the cold northerly winds by the large cliffs that are Flamborough Head. The town council also seems to be making lots of effort to improve the town with a big pedestrian area development. Despite all of this there is something quite sad about a former bustling holiday town off season and the peeling paint on many of the buildings was quite sad to see.

That evening, largely to escape the cold, we decided to see if the RYYC was open for a drink. The building the club owns is just across the road from the harbour and the website indicated a busy club with lots of racing. We buzzed on the door and as soon as we started to explain that we were visiting yachtsmen were let in immediately. We found our way up to the first floor bar with a huge panoramic view across the bay, to be greeted warmly by the two ladies there and immediately offered a glass of prosecco! What a welcome! The lady behind the bar then filled us in on the locations of all of the local amenities that we might need whilst in “Brid”, gave us the access code to the building so that we could use the showers in the morning rather than the fairly grim ones in the harbour, offered us the use of the top floor lounge in the morning for tea/coffee and provided WiFi log on details! Once we had taken all of that in the discussion moved to where we had been and where we were planning to go. When we said we were planning to leave for Scarborough the following day we were immediately put in touch with a couple from the club who would be on their boat in the morning and would be happy to sail in company with us and provide us with local information on rounding “the Head”. The rest of the evening was spent in the company of these and other members of the RYYC swapping sailing tales and comparing adventures.

We took advantage of their hospitality and used the lovely warm clean showers in the morning and also went up to the lounge on the 2nd floor for the impressive views out over the harbour and the bay. As the sun was shining everything seemed so much better!



I cannot believe how warm and friendly and inviting this club was and I would advise any sailor with a boat able to enter the drying harbour of Bridlington to go along and spend some time with this lovely enthusiastic group of people.

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