Marine services in Darling Point

Sailing club

At the edge of Rushcutters Bay, behind a memorial plaque and a stand of naval history, sails the Royal Australian Navy's own yacht club. The RAN Sailing Association — RANSA to its members — carries a dual identity that few Australian clubs can match: it is an official RAN sporting association charged with encouraging sailing "within the Navy and beyond", and at the same time an open harbour club whose membership mixes serving and retired naval personnel with locals who simply love racing on Sydney Harbour. Members hold the privilege of flying the burgee of the Royal Naval Sailing Association, the British parent body to which RANSA still belongs, and are welcomed at RNSA branches in the UK. The club's competitive face is known well beyond the harbour. Its Beneteau First 40, Navy One, races under the association's banner in the Rolex Sydney Hobart, and the annual duel with the Army Sailing Club for the Oggin Cup — first Armed Services yacht home on corrected time — has become one of the race's great subplots, a long-standing friendly rivalry between the services. Around that flagship sits a year-round harbour program, a social calendar of monthly themed dinners, post-race barbecues,