HY TYNE

The Club was founded in 1890 at Alnmouth, but owing to silting of the River Aln and a difficult entrance, the members moved down the coast to the Port of Blyth, and purchased the first House Yacht in 1899. She was a schooner which formerly belonged to Robert Stephenson, the engineer. Shortly after the First War she was found to be rotten and had to be broken up.

The second House Yacht, an Admiralty concrete tug called Crete Hatch, was acquired in 1924. She capsized at her moorings in a violent northerly gale in October 1949, mercifully without loss of life, and was declared a constructive total loss.

The third and present House Yacht is a Trinity House Light Vessel, LV 50, built in 1879, and last on station at Calshot Spit in the Solent. She was purchased in 1952. Over time it has been necessary to remove her top mast and the light itself, and to replace the deck houses, but her double-hulled construction of teak on oak frames with bronze fastenings, still passes survey and provides RNYC members with a saloon seating over 60, bar, galley and changing rooms.