The founding years
The defining change: Mark Foy's new rules: coloured sail emblems, a handicap start, and a triangular course, all designed so spectators could follow the racing.
The 1890s sailing environment was the pinnacle of conservatism, and along came Mark Foy, a Sydney draper determined that open boat sailing should be enjoyed by everybody regardless of financial and social background. He put three hundred pounds into the new club and wrote its rules around a single question: can a stranger on the shore follow this race? Coloured devices on the sails, so the boats could be read against a printed card. A short triangular course, so the whole of it could be watched from one spot. And the handicap given at the start, so the first boat home is the winner.
The row over the colours came afterwards, not before. In December 1891 the committee of the National Regatta ruled that a boat could carry nothing on its sail but the regatta's own number. The rule bound every boat in the regatta, but the Squadron's devices were dyed, painted and sewn into the cloth, so complying meant ruining the sails, and no notice had been given. The club answered with a regatta of its own, the Australian Anniversary Regatta, sailed off Clark Island on 26 January 1892.
At first the Squadron raced all lengths of open boat, from 6-footers to 24-footers. The standing joke was that there were only two rules: the boats had to be 18 feet long, and the race started at a quarter to three. The first race, on 24 October 1891, was won by Mantura, sailed off scratch by Chris Webb, from Mark Foy's own Kananook by one second.