The Vancouver Yacht Club was formed in 1903, seventeen years after Vancouver was incorporated. The Club had as its first headquarters a small rented house at the foot of Thurlow Street in coal Harbour and proudly counted eighteen yachts in its fleet!

The first elected commodore was Walter E. Graveley, a real estate dealer whose racing credits included sailing on the Countess of Dufferin, the 1876 challenger for the Americas Cup.

The Club soon built a two-storey floating clubhouse on a leased water lot just west of the foot of Bute Street. In 1905 it was towed to a new site in the shelter of Deadman’s Island, close to our present coal Harbour location. This building was later hoisted onto the bank in Stanley Park and used as a spar shed until 1977.