Page 7 - March/April 2019 Kwasind

HERITAGE YEAR-END REPORT
David Weatherston, Chair, Heritage Committee
The 2017-2018 season started engagingly for the Heritage Committee with the June arrival of HMCS Oriole. Designed by the esteemed George Owen, Commodore Gooderham’s Marconi-rigged steel ketch joined the Club fleet in 1921, remaining until a new owner transferred her to the Navy League toward the end of the Second World War. Subsequently, she made her way to the west coast, where she contributed to the training of cadets for many decades. Now she is stationed in Halifax, performing that same duty while showing the flag around Atlantic ports. This visit was her first taste of fresh water since the war and we are honoured that she called on us.
The visit was great fun, and dozens of Members crawled over her, marveling that a 102-foot LOA steel yacht, with such massive hardware, could be sailed without winches. Others, author included, were impressed by the crew’s disciplined intensity in navigating and handling this demanding vessel.
This visit was the culmination of a reset and reinforcement of the Club’s recognition of our naval origins,beginningwithanaval-themeHeritageDinner in 2017, whose special guest, Vice-Admiral Lloyd, Commander of the Navy, not only gave us an engaging talk but agreed to become a Patron of the Club. Subsequent exchanges have reinforced our mutual regard, and we look forward to the return of the Navy and of HMCS Oriole in 2020.
One of the significant themes of this Heritage year is security of our art and artefacts. We have an immense historical – and monetary – value in our heritage holdings but for a long time we have neglected the security precautions needed to protect them. Tens of thousands of dollars in trophies and incalculable value of heritage value were open to any bold villain. Indeed we nearly lost one of our most valuable, in dollars and sentiment, trophies to a bit of smooth “social engineering”.
Fortunately security concerns are on an upswing. Our freestanding display cases are now relatively secure and our Archivist and Curator Beverley Darville is lobbying hard for serious upgrades to the main display cases on the Island and in the City. Thanks to the generosity of a Member, we should soon see an aesthetically appropriate and secure trophy case in our Island Trophy Room. Secure City cases are still on the indefinite horizon and must become a priority.
Unfortunately, circumstances forced our able then- Chair, Brian Anthony, to leave us and I was selected
for the post of Chair. Fortunately, the Committee is a first-rate bunch that – surprise – is doing the lion’s share of the work (delegate, delegate...).
Louise Cannon continues her labours compiling Annals, a project that until she assumed it was sadly in abeyance – we are now within two years of an up-to- date record and as she steps back, capable hands are waiting in the wings.
The Heritage portion of our Club website has languished for some years and this is being taken in hand. Diane McElroy, Beverley Darville and I are collaborating with Membership & Marketing, to create a more outsider- friendly set of Heritage pages, intended to help the new visitor understand and appreciate our history as a valuable component in his or her Club experience. We are also revamping our pages devoted to the half-hulls in the Model Room. These pages have prompted a steady stream of inquiries from publications, historians and researchers; they are a window on the world of yachting history and historians – for instance, the enthusiastic Glasgow-based producer of a catalogue raisonnée on the Scots designer Albert Mylne who discovered RCYC, our models and the Mylne-designed Severn II on the web and paid us a visit this past summer to see for himself. The pages will be broadened to include information on all our models, not just those in the Model Room.
The “Heritage Task Force”, our Archivist Beverley Darville, Sue-Anne Gyles, Jen Volk, and design-challenged me, have been working to pull the Clubhouse displays of art and artefact into curatorial acceptability. This, particularly for Beverley Darville, has been a challenge. While Cornerstone proceeds in erecting, polishing and preparing our buildings, Beverley Darville has laboured since the 2018 Sailpast to display our treasures in a manner that we can enjoy, yet that respects the need to preserve them for future generations – it’s a bit like changing a flat on your bike while racing down a mountain. Some Members are dismayed that so many walls are bare, some are annoyed that lesser works are given prominent, if only placeholder, locations. But it’s been 50 years or more since anyone has looked seriously at the issues, and there’s only one Beverley Darville to do the curatorial work of many. It will be worth waiting for.
Also worth waiting for are the Committee’s plans for the coming season.
• First, on March 30, we will launch a Heritage Dinner review of Fabulous Racing Fleets: Past and Present, with commentary by two of the
KWASIND • MARCH/APRIL 2019 7
HERITAGE