Marine services in Taree

Sailing club

"We have whole families racing and call ourselves 'the family club'" — that is how Manning River Sailing Club describes itself, and the record bears it out. Based on the river at Taree, this is a multi-generational dinghy club whose roots run back through the VJ and Sabot eras, and whose alumni include an Olympic bronze medallist and national champions produced from a small Mid North Coast town. Ian Ruff, who won bronze in the 470 class at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, learnt his sailing on the Manning River in the VJ "Heroic"; club champion John Muscio collected junior state, senior state and Australian VJ titles across three consecutive seasons in the early 1980s. One clarification matters for visitors: Taree is home to two intertwined sailing bodies. The Manning River Vee-Ess Sailing Club, formed in 1946, became the licensed Taree Aquatic Club at the foot of Macquarie Street, while the VJ and Sabot clubs that amalgamated in 1979 became today's Manning River Sailing Club on William Wynter Drive. They are separate organisations — the Aquatic Club's own risk manual notes that junior sail training for the area is carried out by Manning River Sailing Club. The clubhouse doubles as a

Sailing club

Few sailing clubs in New South Wales live two lives quite as openly as Taree Aquatic Club. Walk in off Macquarie Street and you are in Sailos, a licensed club with a restaurant, gaming, functions and live entertainment marketed on dining beside the Manning River. Step out the back on a summer weekend and you are at the start line of a dinghy club whose roots run to 1946, with race signals flown from the balcony and a finish line that stretches from an outer pink buoy back to the club wall. The two identities are not at war — the hospitality business has, for decades, paid for the sailing — but together they make this one of the more distinctive institutions on the Mid North Coast. The sailing section carries a heritage fleet of classes that tells the story of post-war Australian dinghy racing: Vee-Esses and MGs, NS14s, Flying 11s, Manly Juniors and Sabots, with trailer yachts filling out the divisions. Racing is organised under the club's own sailing instructions across Divisions One, Two and Three plus a trailer yacht division, with trophies for any constituted class that puts five or more boats on the water. It is competitive but unpretentious club racing on the river, the kind