Marine services in West Tamworth

Sailing club

Sailors on the coast sometimes forget that some of the keenest weekend racing in New South Wales happens hundreds of kilometres inland, on an irrigation storage in the Namoi Valley. Lake Keepit Sailing Club has run its racing on Keepit Dam, between Gunnedah and Tamworth, since 1960, and it carries the easy self-confidence of a club that knows exactly what it is: a friendly inland fleet where, as the club puts it, people from every walk of life find the companionship of like-minded sailors hard to beat. The racing itself is handicapped across an unusually broad spread of craft, from high-performance sports boats at one end of the yardstick table to cruising trailerable yachts at the other. Light-air specialists tend to thrive here, because Keepit's breezes reward patience and local knowledge rather than brute power. Visitors are welcome to turn up on any Sunday and have a go, and members enjoy standing access to club boats for cruising the dam. One fixture defines the club's year above all others: the Keepit Kool Regatta, staged every June long weekend since the late 1960s and drawing crews from across New South Wales and Queensland. Recent editions have attracted Lasers, NS15s, a