{"id":97354,"date":"2026-08-04T18:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T18:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/97354\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T18:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T18:16:10","slug":"jemima-lines-britains-new-female-americas-cup-sailor-inspired-by-sas-dad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/97354\/","title":{"rendered":"Jemima Lines: Britain\u2019s new female America\u2019s Cup sailor inspired by SAS dad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Women have not always been welcomed with open arms at the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS). The Cowes-based yacht club dates back to 1815, the year of the Battle of Waterloo, but only voted to allow female members in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The men-only policy has led to some awkward moments down the years. When Queen Victoria, who had a holiday home in nearby Osborne House, expressed a desire to watch the squadron\u2019s annual regatta from the Castle, where the clubhouse is based, the members did not know what to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously they needed to accommodate the monarch,\u201d says Bertie Bicket, the RYS\u2019s commodore, with a smile. \u201cBut they also needed to stick to their rules. So they built a structure on the seaward side of the castle, now known as \u2018The Platform\u2019, with a kind of glass structure, along with some steps leading up to this new structure, so that it was possible to keep both the members and the monarch happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is fair to say times have changed. This year marks the 175th anniversary of the founding of the <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/americas-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">America\u2019s Cup<\/a>, also here in Cowes. So it felt rather symbolic that on Tuesday, GB1, Britain\u2019s challenger for yachting\u2019s best-known trophy, chose the club as the venue from which to announce Jemima Lines, a 29-year-old kitefoiler and adventurer, as their first female sailor since Phyllis Sopwith, wife of Sir Thomas Sopwith, in 1934 and 1937.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women have not always been welcomed with open arms at the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS). The Cowes-based yacht&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[41241,13,2836,771,330,1797,333,5885],"class_list":["post-97354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-americas-cup","tag-britain","tag-sailing","tag-sport","tag-standard","tag-top-story","tag-us-content","tag-womens-sport"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117038611366812325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}