Yet another Conservative Institution for Well-Mannered Gamesmen has changed its policy about being a club exclusively for he man woman haters: the UK’s Royal Yacht Squadron (don’t the British just have the most adorable sense of whimsy?) decided last week to start admitting women, if only because 21st-century sexism is pretty unseemly. In other words, being an dudes-only club in the modern world is a little mortifying, and if there’s one thing the Queen’s dutiful subjects all know it’s how to avoid embarrassment.
The RYS (or simply “the squadron”) will not suddenly become a rabble pit of unwed women and satyrs pretending to be pirates because one does not simply apply to join the RYS — one is invited. According to the Telegraph, the decision to start inviting women to the RYS was made last week during the start of the Cowes regatta, which sounds like a giant, Waterworld-themed bacchanal just off the northern tip of the Isle of Wight. Stuart Quarrie, the chief executive of Cowes Week Limited, explained that the decision to welcome women into the squadron fold was, to say the least, a long-time coming:
It’s something that’s been coming a long time, has been discussed a long time
Michael Campbell, the current commodore of the squadron, really wanted it to happen and felt that it was right.
It’s simply the right time.
Look for the RYS to learn its lesson from being caught so far behind the times and get out ahead of everybody. Instead of a water-based regatta, maybe the RYS should do something a little, I dunno, edgier, more adventurous, more cosmic. How does SPACE REGATTA sound, hmm? That way, the RYS can get started in the process of finding an entire civilization of alien women to not invite to its club functions.
Image via AP, Dave Caulkin