Smear campaign rocks Point Piper’s exclusive Royal Motor Yacht Club
Not since one of the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Point Piper’s well-heeled members was accused of stealing two bags of ice from a neighbouring luxury boat has Sydney’s secretive bastion of wealth and privilege by the harbour navigated such treacherous waters.
At the centre of the latest storm is an anonymous poison pen campaign aimed at the club’s commodore, Sydney solicitor John Barbouttis, who is a long-term member of more than 30 years.
Just over a week ago an unaddressed letter, purported to have been penned by a disgruntled member/members who say they “love the club”, was mysteriously dropped into members’ letter boxes across Sydney. However Barbouttis said he did not receive it.
The letter contains a series of allegations ranging from accounts of internal staff turmoil to questions about how 70 new people were allowed into the club despite a membership freeze.
“I won’t reply to anonymous letters,” Barbouttis told the Herald on Thursday. “If people want to put their name to something, I’ll address it. This is childish, it’s gutless and they are hiding behind something, exactly what I do not know, but it certainly doesn’t deserve a reply and you can quote me on that.
“I’ve had more phone calls from people saying exactly what I just said to you than you can imagine.”
Figures from the club’s financial results for the financial year ending 2023 show there were 1902 members compared with 1832 in the previous year. The club reported a net profit that year of $670,528 – about half what it was the year before.
Barbouttis said “how and if” the club’s board of directors responded to the anonymous allegations was “a matter for the club, not the public”.
So sought after is membership at the club that several potential candidates, who declined to be named for fear of jeopardising their application, told the Herald they had been waiting up to five years to be approved.
This is not the first time the club has been mired in scandal. In 2007 death threats were made as an ugly fight for control of the secretive establishment hit the headlines.
An anonymous voicemail to board member Matthew Scarf, of the Reuben F. Scarf menswear dynasty, was told his son “will have an accident” if he did not withdraw his candidacy for the treasurer’s position.
Police traced the call to a public phone.
Another board member, Neil Webster, who remains on the board, allegedly found a typed threat against his family under the windscreen wiper of his Mercedes-Benz car which was parked outside the Point Piper clubhouse.
The club posted the threats on its website and emailed its then 1400-strong membership, which includes former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, broadcaster John Laws and prominent Sydney business identities John Symond, superyacht owner Ian Malouf, hotelier Peter Calligeros, businessman Mark Bouris, property developer John Boyd and car dealer Neville Chrichton. NSW governor Margaret Beazley is patron of the club and outgoing Governor-General David Hurley is honorary patron.
For years the club has been deeply divided over support for a controversial super marina in Rose Bay proposed by multi-millionaire and club member Denis O’Neill.
O’Neill’s son Ned sits on the club’s board. He declined to comment on the latest fracas, but impressed on the Herald the club was “a very good place, an asset for families in the local community”.
However, in-fighting has plagued the club for decades.
Nicholas Tsoukaris, an importer and fishing gear retailer from Vaucluse, was expelled in August 2010, losing his highly prized Rose Bay mooring, after he allegedly stole two bags of ice from a vessel moored beside him at the marina.
The expulsion was the catalyst for a bitter legal stoush between the parties, with allegations of forgery, bias and suggestions of corruption.
The club alleged Tsoukaris was entertaining guests on his boat, MV Tainui, in April 2010, when he directed two of his party to take ice from the neighbouring boat, Big Buddy, owned by long-standing member John Keith snr and his son, John Keith jnr.
A member of the club’s board, Rear Commodore Michael Tess, was passing at the time and ordered the two men to stop taking the ice and leave the boat, to which Tsoukaris allegedly replied: “Don’t make an arse of yourself, Mick. John Keith has authorised me to go on his boat and we’re just getting ice from the fridge.”
Tsoukaris spent $400,000 in legal fees and 18 months unsuccessfully seeking an order from the NSW Supreme Court that he be allowed to return to the club.
Following the judgment, Barbouttis told the Herald the legal battle could have been prevented if Tsoukaris had “picked up the phone and apologised”.
“There’s no real joy in this decision for the club – it’s all quite sad really,” he said at the time. “You never want a private situation like this to end up in court.”