When after the second world war Sailing in the Flemish and Zeeland waters started to flourish, many yacht clubs became very active in creating new regatta’s. Building activity increased rapidly, amongst others at the boatyard of the Maas brothers in Breskens. All those new owners competed in the new events almost every weekend. Life was simple. If you had a boat you also had a regular crew and they raced every weekend and the greater part of their holidays. The rapidly increasing fleet moved from port to port and in the summer holidays Cowes Week, Fastnet Race and the Spain Races were visited.

 

In 1965 the calendar became so congested and four clubs, BRYC, RYCB, SRNA and the newly founded WV Breskens joined forces with their respective races and trophies in Breskens Week, held in two weekends in September. Initially there was one race each day, started from the harbour pier. In later years the races were started from a committee vessel in the Scheldt estuary with windward-leeward courses and more than one race per day.

 

In 1990 the Royal Netherlands Yachting Federation and the Royal Belgian Yachting Federation celebrated their centenary. In 1890 they were founded as one federation but after 1918 the Belgians decided to go on as an independent entity. To highlight this celebration a new event was created: the John Brown IMS Clubchampionship, a biannual international regatta for club teams that lasted a whole week in July. It attracted a very competitive fleet with amongst others, teams from the RORC. The organising clubs where the “old clubs” who had originally founded the Federation in 1890, the Royal Netherlands Yacht Club from Muiden, the Royal Maas Club from Rotterdam, the Royal Yacht Club of Belgium from Antwerp and the Royal Belgian Sailing Club from Ghent. The Noordzee Club and the WV Breskens completed the team. Each club provided a beautiful trophy honouring a famous innovator of the sport of Sailing. In this way names like Ricus van de Stadt, Frank Murdoch, Jelle Gerritsma and Henri Leten were given the respect they deserved. After several successful events the fleets dwindled and towards the end of the Century the event was merged with Breskens Week in September. The club team concept was not supported any more.

 

Breskens Week suffered dramatically from the diversion of the Dutch and Belgian fleets into IMS and IRC. The number of boats diminished with and increase of the number of classes at the same time. This gave way to the initiative of the organisers to revamp the event in the present form as Breskens Sailing Weekend, held on one long weekend with all boats competing in one handicap system.

 

H. Zuiderbaan

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