Marina service
Royal Victorian Motor Yacht Club Marina
About
Royal Victorian Motor Yacht Club Marina at a glance
Club marina with 80 berths for boats to 18m offering permanent, casual and visitor accommodation, plus yard and hardstand facilities with travel-lift access via Savages Wharf.
Service area: Hobsons Bay, Melbourne
- Marina type
- yacht club marina
- Operator
- Royal Victorian Motor Yacht Club
- Region
- Hobsons Bay, Melbourne
- Water body
- Port Phillip Bay
- Wet berths
- 80
- Maximum vessel
- 18 m
Facilities and services
- power & water
- hardstand
- travel lift
- bar
- waterfront dining
- venue hire
- trailer boat space
- catamaran berths
- waiting list berthing
- Clean Marina accredited
About Royal Victorian Motor Yacht Club Marina
On a shoreline dominated by sailing clubs, the Royal Victorian Motor Yacht Club has flown the flag for powerboating from 260 Nelson Place since the early twentieth century, holding its royal warrant as one of the few motor yacht clubs in the country with that distinction. The clubhouse looks straight across the bay to Port Melbourne and the city skyline, a view its members claim as the best in Williamstown, and the club wears its traditions openly: the boating year opens each October with an Opening Day ceremony that includes the Commodore's address, a sail past and a formal blessing of the fleet, an occasion that in past years has drawn senior politicians and naval officers. Alongside the ceremony, the club describes itself as progressive on traditional values, and the facilities back that up: a new clubhouse opened in May 2015, giving members a modern dining room and bar over the water. The marina holds 80 berths catering for boats up to 18 metres, and while cruisers and flybridge power boats dominate the pens, yachts are far from excluded. The club participates in the Clean Marina Program, with the environmental controls and security standards that certification demands. What distinguishes RVMYC from the commercial marinas further along the Strand is the club structure itself: berths are allocated to members through a committee process rather than sold or leased commercially, so the fleet is stable, the faces are familiar, and the social calendar, from the dining room to the boats themselves, is the glue that holds the place together.
Marina facilities
The 80 marina berths take vessels to 18 metres and are offered on permanent, casual and visitor arrangements, with water and shore power at every berth; the docks are floating, handle both side-to and stern-to mooring, and can take catamarans, with charted depth around two to three metres at low water and negligible tidal flow. Berth allocation is members-only and runs through a formal process: a one-off non-refundable application fee, inspection of the boat for seaworthiness by the Marina Sub Committee, and then a place on a waiting list that the committee works through as berths fall vacant. Visitors from kindred clubs and travelling boats can request a berth using the club's visitor form, and must supply an insurance certificate of currency with the booking. Shower and toilet facilities are in the clubhouse, and the 2015 clubhouse provides waterfront dining, a bar and function spaces for members and guests. The yard is the practical core for owners: a paved hardstand offers storage at moderate member rates, with trailer boat space as well, and haul-outs are handled through the modern travel lift at Savages Wharf immediately adjacent, whose crew conduct the slipping and launching of club vessels, so antifouling and underwater work can be arranged without moving the boat more than a few hundred metres. The club's Clean Marina accreditation underpins its wash-down and waste practices. Security is maintained across the marina and yard. Enquiries run through the club office at admin@rvmyc.com.au or on (03) 9393 2888, and berth sizes available at any time depend on the waiting list.
Local sailing knowledge
The club sits in the middle of the Williamstown waterfront, with the Ferguson Street Pier and Hobsons Bay Yacht Club a short walk to the south and Savages Wharf boatyard hard alongside to the north, which makes this stretch of Nelson Place the densest concentration of marine services on the bay. Approaching by water is simple: Hobsons Bay is open, deep water for club-sized boats, the shipping channels into the Yarra and the Port of Melbourne pass well to the north-east, and the only real seamanship issue is keeping clear of commercial traffic and watching for the fast south-westerly changes that sweep the bay. In northerly weather the water off the club is calm enough for the dinghy ride ashore to dinner. Nelson Place's cafes, pubs and the marina-front restaurants on The Strand are all within ten minutes on foot, and Williamstown's supermarkets, chandleries and marine trades cover provisioning and repairs without leaving the suburb. For a weekend away, members run across to Geelong, down the bay to Blairgowrie or Sorrento, or up the Yarra to the city marinas, each an easy half-day passage from the pen. The club's position opposite Port Melbourne also puts it on the route of the Williamstown ferry, so crew and guests can arrive by boat from Southgate without a car. Winter sees the harbour quieten but never close, and the dining room's outlook across to the city lights is the club's year-round compensation for the cold Club cruises in company are a fixture of the calendar, with raft-ups in Corio Bay and Portarlington popular because the shallow draft-friendly anchorages suit the power fleet as well as the sailors.