Notable members have included include Erskine Childers, Arthur Ransome, Hammond Innes, Peter and Anne Pye, Bill Tilman, Blondie Hasler, Adlard Coles, Miles and Beryl Smeeton and Eric and Susan Hiscock (Eric Hiscock was Vice-Commodore from 1959 to 1963),[3] Paul Heiney[4] The RCC presents annual cups, medals and prizes some specifically for its members but also unrestricted awards for feats of outstanding exploration, seamanship and services to cruising.

Holders of this cup included Dr. Howard Sinclair, 1896-1898 ; Lieutenant-Colonel R. Barrington Baker, 1899, 1900, 1902; Philip Herbert, 1901; Colonel T. V. W. Phillips, R.A., 1903; C. E. Walker, 1904.

[8] Its operations are run by a volunteer management team responsible to the Pilotage Foundation's trustees, whose appointment is approved by the RCC.

[5] Many notable yachtspeople have been RCC members including Claud Worth, Miles and Beryl Smeeton and especially Eric and Susan Hiscock, whose lifetime of voyaging, and their accounts of these in books and films, inspired a generation of long distance sailors in modest yachts.

During World War II a select group of superannuated yachtsmen, including several members of the Royal Cruising Club, were recruited to survey and study parts of the continental coastline that might be of strategic significance .