Sailing club
Mooloolaba Yacht Club
About
Mooloolaba Yacht Club at a glance
Mooloolaba Yacht Club prints its priorities in three words — "Sailing, Fun and Friendship" — and that motto has carried the club from its 1967 founding to its present place at the centre of Sunshine Coast keelboat racing. Affiliated with Australian Sailing and based in the marina precinct at Mooloolaba, it is a yacht club in the literal sense: the emphasis falls on keelboats rather than off-the-beach dinghies, and the calendar mixes serious ocean-racing business with an unusually strong social program. The club serves as finishing authority and welcoming party for the Sydney to Mooloolaba Yacht Race, one of the classic east-coast passage races, a duty it has performed since the race's finish shifted north in 1973. It also organises the town's Christmas Boat Parade, which says much about how embedded the club is in local life beyond the start line. The achievement that has drawn the widest attention, though, is its women's keelboat pathway. What began in 2017 as a skills development program has grown into the Mooloolaba Women's Keelboat Regatta, which took out the national SheSails Award at Australian Sailing's 2022 awards night — recognition from the sport's governing body that the
Service area: Mooloolaba, QLD
- Club type
- Keelboat
- Australian Sailing
- Affiliated · 2025-26
- Primary classes
- Keelboat
- Kids learn to sail
- Available
About Mooloolaba Yacht Club
Mooloolaba Yacht Club prints its priorities in three words — "Sailing, Fun and Friendship" — and that motto has carried the club from its 1967 founding to its present place at the centre of Sunshine Coast keelboat racing. Affiliated with Australian Sailing and based in the marina precinct at Mooloolaba, it is a yacht club in the literal sense: the emphasis falls on keelboats rather than off-the-beach dinghies, and the calendar mixes serious ocean-racing business with an unusually strong social program. The club serves as finishing authority and welcoming party for the Sydney to Mooloolaba Yacht Race, one of the classic east-coast passage races, a duty it has performed since the race's finish shifted north in 1973. It also organises the town's Christmas Boat Parade, which says much about how embedded the club is in local life beyond the start line. The achievement that has drawn the widest attention, though, is its women's keelboat pathway. What began in 2017 as a skills development program has grown into the Mooloolaba Women's Keelboat Regatta, which took out the national SheSails Award at Australian Sailing's 2022 awards night — recognition from the sport's governing body that the club had built something genuinely influential. By 2021, members had elected a woman as Commodore and another as Vice-Commodore for the first time. Racing sailors know the club for its match racing and its one-design Elliott 6 fleet; newcomers know it as a clubhouse whose deck overlooks the Mooloolah River, with the office open on Wednesday and Friday.
Training and sailing programs
The signature offering here is the Women's Keelboat Sailing Skills Development Program, established in 2017 and built around the club's fleet of four one-design Elliott 6 keelboats — an unusual asset that lets novices learn on identical, properly competitive yachts. The results speak plainly: more than a hundred women took up sailing through the program between 2017 and 2020, and several graduates have since bought and campaigned their own offshore keelboats — Karen Young's Galatea and Tanya Kelly's Spartan among them — in club racing and events such as the Hart Cup and the Brisbane to Gladstone. Coaching has been led by Danielle Kennedy, a 2012 Olympian who represented Canada in the Laser Radial, and Stuart Kennedy, a veteran of three Sydney to Hobart races. The program was a 2019 finalist in Australian Sailing's Queensland SheSails category, and the regatta it spawned — short-course fleet racing held on the Mooloolah River, in association with SheSails — collected the national SheSails Award in 2022. The club also welcomed the Women's Match Racing Nationals to town in September 2019 and staged an inaugural Women's Winter Regatta that same year. Beyond the women's pathway, the club operates as an accredited Australian Sailing Discover Sailing Centre, putting the Elliott 6s to work across its learn-to-sail and racing programs. Current junior dinghy or Tackers offerings do not feature in the club's published material, consistent with its keelboat orientation. Regular competition includes weekend yacht racing, Wednesday afternoon racing off Mooloolaba, one-design social racing on the river, and the Sail Mooloolaba Match Racing Championship, won in 2017 by club member James Hodgson.
Sailing waters
The clubhouse sits in the Clubs' Precinct at Mooloolaba Marina, 33-45 Parkyn Parade, with a deck that looks directly over the Mooloolah River. It is a working waterfront rather than a beach setting: trawlers and marina traffic share the river, and the office keeps set hours — Wednesday and Friday, ten until two — which suits a club run substantially by volunteers. Two distinct sailing grounds lie on the doorstep. The river itself hosts the one-design social racing and the short-course women's regatta, a tight, spectator-friendly arena where the Elliott 6 fleet competes within easy view of the bank. Outside the river mouth lies the open water off Mooloolaba, where the Wednesday afternoon and weekend racing takes place and where offshore crews prepare for passage events up and down the east coast. The combination is a practical one: beginners and one-design sailors get enclosed, protected water, while offshore racers have immediate access to ocean conditions. Mooloolaba's position on the Sunshine Coast also makes it a natural finish port, which is precisely what the Sydney to Mooloolaba race has exploited since 1973, bringing ocean-racing fleets up the river at the end of each running. For visiting crews, the marina precinct provides berthing and shore services within walking distance of the clubhouse, and the town's esplanade and dining strip sit immediately adjacent. Contact is straightforward — phone or email — and the club publishes both. Few clubs in Queensland can offer a racing day that begins on a riverbank deck and ends at sea within the hour, and that geography shapes everything the club does.
Club history
Established in 1967, the club grew up alongside Mooloolaba's rise as one of the Sunshine Coast's principal boating centres. Its defining national connection arrived soon after: the Sydney to Brisbane Yacht Race, founded in 1964, had its finish transferred to Mooloolaba in 1973, and the club has handled the finish and the welcome ever since — a role that delivers an ocean-racing fleet to its doorstep with each running. Match racing became another thread. The club runs the Sail Mooloolaba Match Racing Championship, contested on the river, and in 2014 it joined with other Sunshine Coast clubs to stage a month-long Sail Mooloolaba festival, running from 5 June to 6 July, which packed in the Etchells Australasian Winter Championship, the Sports Boats Winter Nationals, the SB20 Nationals, off-the-beach events and open match racing. The 2015 edition incorporated the Australian Youth Match Racing Championship. The most consequential recent chapter opened in 2017, when the women's keelboat skills pathway was launched. A Women's Winter Regatta followed in 2019, along with hosting duties for the Women's Match Racing Nationals, and the Mooloolaba Women's Keelboat Regatta quickly became a fixture. In 2021 members elected women as both Commodore and Vice-Commodore, a first for the club — Tanya Kelly taking the top job, a role previously held by Tracey Johnstone — and in 2022 the regatta received the national SheSails Award at the Australian Sailing Awards. Alongside the racing milestones, the club continues to organise the Mooloolaba Christmas Boat Parade, keeping one foot firmly planted in the town's social calendar as it has for decades.