Marine services in Sussex Inlet

Sailing club

Most yacht clubs are anchored to a building. Sussex Inlet & Basin Yacht Club is anchored to a stretch of water instead — the club states plainly that the waters of St Georges Basin are its clubhouse, because it has no fixed clubhouse on the shore. It is a trailer-sailer club in the purest form: around a dozen or so boats, their owners towing in from across the Shoalhaven and beyond, rigging at public ramps and racing the big shallow lagoon that spreads behind the Sussex Inlet township on the NSW South Coast. The club bills itself as the Basin's home of social sailing and racing, and the order of those words matters. Racing here is genuinely competitive — a full handicap system, divisional results, an annual regatta that draws entries from Sydney, the Illawarra and Port Kembla — but it is run inside a deliberately social frame. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in sailing, whether actively or simply as a supporter, and visitors can sample up to six races as guests before anyone raises the subject of joining. The centrepiece of the year is the annual Regatta on the first weekend of February, which has pulled visiting crews from all over NSW and further afield for more t