Cecil Quentin

Only four of the 14 entries started in the over 20 tons class at the 1900 Olympics and British yachts occupied the first two places. Selwin Calverley’s 153-tonner Brynhild took the line honors but Cecil Quentin’s 96-ton Cicely won on time adjustment. Born in Waterford City, Ireland, Cecil Quentin’s family moved to a farm at Old Court, near Kilmeaden, County Waterford, when he was still very young. In around 1860 the Quentin family left Ireland for Gloucestershire, England.

As a friend and one-time business partner of Cecil Rhodes, Quentin was, in his early days, one of the country’s most prominent financiers. He started out as a civil engineer by profession but later became a company director, and lived at Milland, Liphook, Hampshire.

As a yacht owner his most notable triumph came when his yachts “Merrythought” and “Cicely” (an identically named successor to his Olympic yacht) raced to numerous victories over the German Emperor’s yacht, “Meteor III” around the turn of the 20th century whilst under the captaincy of Jesse Cranfield. It is theoretically possible that Cranfield may have been the skipper of the boat during the Olympics although Quentin was definitely in Le Havre at the time of the 1900 Olympics.

On his retirement Quentin settled in Ramsgate, a seaside town in east Kent where he was a leading member of the Royal Temple Yacht Club.