A former captain at Greenwich Yacht Club has been cleared of harassment in a dispute involving the club’s former commodore over mooring fees for an 80-foot barge. Stefan Oloffs faced legal action brought by Richard Phillips, who alleged that Oloffs waged a campaign of harassment against him, causing significant distress and reputational harm.

The conflict centered on accusations from Oloffs that Phillips misused his position to secure preferential mooring arrangements for his barge, Verandering, and avoided paying substantial fees. According to court documents, Oloffs disseminated these claims through a WhatsApp group of approximately 230 members, submitted a formal complaint to the Port of London Authority regarding Phillips’s conduct, and created a website titled “Barge Gate” to publicize the allegations.

In 2024, the Greenwich Yacht Club expelled Oloffs for spreading claims about another member that it considered potentially defamatory. Oloffs subsequently appealed this decision. Meanwhile, Phillips sought £20,000 in damages, alleging that Oloffs’s actions led to anxiety, sleep loss, public embarrassment, and humiliation.

Mrs Justice Hill, presiding over the case, dismissed the majority of Phillips’s harassment claims. She acknowledged that Oloffs’s conduct may have caused irritation and upset but ruled that it did not meet the legal threshold for harassment. The judge noted that the conduct in question consisted of a single email, ten WhatsApp messages sent over two days, a complaint to the port authority, and the establishment of the website. However, the court deferred ruling on whether Oloffs had violated Phillips’s data protection rights through the “Barge Gate” site, leaving that matter for a future hearing.

Greenwich Yacht Club, located approximately three miles downriver from Tower Bridge in southeast London, is home to more than 400 members. It offers facilities for dinghy and cruiser sailing as well as rowing. Established in 1908 by Thames watermen and river workers, the club moved from its original riverside hut to its current platform in the middle of the river in 2000 and describes itself as one of the Thames’s most successful yacht clubs.