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Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Dover, TAS.

Sailing club

Every February, a fleet of ocean-racing yachts rounds Cape Otway, runs north-west past the Twelve Apostles and finishes off one of the oldest towns in Victoria — and the welcome waiting at the end has made Port Fairy Yacht Club famous well beyond its size. Within the ocean-racing fraternity the club is renowned for the warmth of its hospitality, a reputation earned one arrival at a time: hot food served to crews no matter the hour they cross the line, and a local pilot guiding each yacht up the Moyne River to a safe berth. For keelboat and trailable sailors, this is a club whose identity is bound up with the sea at its most demanding. Home sailing happens on Port Fairy Bay, where the Southern Ocean rolls in along the stretch of Victoria known as the Shipwreck Coast. The clubhouse stands at 1 Griffith Street beside the Moyne River, close to the river mouth and the harbour, in a port town that ocean racers routinely describe as something out of a film — nineteenth-century cottages, Norfolk pines, old stone churches. The building is managed in connection with the Moyne Shire and is available for hire outside club activity, a typical arrangement for a country club of this scale. The

Sailing club

Family-oriented dinghy sailing club at 226B Attunga Road, Yowie Bay, racing MJs, Flying 11s, NS14s, Herons and Sharpies.

Sailing club

Mixed in Port Hedland, WA.

Sailing club

Across the harbour from the Newcastle CBD, at Stockton, sits a club that has guarded the 16ft skiff tradition on this waterway since 1909. Port Hunter 16ft Sailing Skiff Club counts itself among Australia's oldest continuously operating skiff clubs, with honour rolls and records stretching back to 1913–14, and Saturday-afternoon racing has run here, interrupted only by the Second World War, for well over a century. The 16-footer remains the headline act from September to April, backed by MG14s and a catamaran division that has run continuously since the early 1980s, while Flying Ants occupy Saturday mornings. The club's alumni carry genuine weight in Australian sailing lore: Ben Lexcen — then Bob Miller, the man who would go on to design the winged-keel Australia II of America's Cup fame — had his first sail in a 16ft skiff here, crewing with Neville de Glorian in IRIS. The 1995 NACRA 5.8 Catamaran World Championship fell to club pair Chris Russell and Jeff Jordan. Yet for all that pedigree, the modern dress code could hardly be more relaxed — thongs, the club notes, are practically obligatory footwear — a pointed contrast to the top hats, jackets and ties once required aboard the

Sailing club

On the northern shore of Lake Illawarra, just south of Wollongong, Port Kembla Sailing Club runs the region's liveliest off-the-beach sailing scene. This is a volunteer-run co-operative where monohull dinghies — Herons, Sharpies, OKs and, historically, NS14s — share the grass with F18 and other catamarans, Wetas and trailable yachts, and where racing to Yachting NSW guidelines is described by the club as competitive and of a high standard. The honour boards carry state and national champions across all classes, accumulated over seven decades. Yet the club is just as deliberate about the laid-back side: social sailing and trailable-yacht weekends sit comfortably alongside the pointscore, and members tow their boats to regattas across NSW and beyond, catching up with friends made at other clubs along the way. The community focus has been there since day one — the club was founded by a group of friends who simply wanted to sail together — and it shows in details like the canteen's legendary hamburgers, the Saturday-night barbecue at regatta time, and affiliations with Pride in Sport and Play by the Rules. Sponsors including the Illawarra Heart Centre and Aluna Windows & Doors back the

Sailing club

Mixed in Port Kennedy, WA.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Port Lincoln, SA.

Sailing club

Dinghy in Port MacDonnell, SA.

Sailing club

From its base at McInherney Park on Settlement Point, hard by the Hastings River, Port Macquarie Sailing Club runs off-the-beach racing for one of the mid-north coast's most loyal dinghy and catamaran fleets. Tasars, NS14s, Impulses, Lasers and Laser Radials race alongside catamarans — Arrow cats among them — split into monohull and cat divisions scored on yardstick and handicap, through a season that opens in early September after a working bee and runs through spring, summer, sprint and handicap-start series to a club championship in both divisions. This is a community volunteer club in the truest sense, right down to the trophy shelf: perpetual honours include the Ted Kuhn Cup, contested in three divisions — cat, single-handed monohull, and crewed boats without spinnakers — and the Easter Cup, sailed as a mixed-fleet contest, while presentation night pairs clubhouse proceedings with dinner next door at Banks Café. The development culture is visible in the awards themselves — top junior female and male sailors, leading woman sailor, a senior encouragement award and a most-improved trophy all feature. Club members have also travelled to Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club's SheSails Dev

Sailing club

Founded by a passionate group of sailors on 3 August 1981, Port Macquarie Yacht Club has spent four decades growing from a fleet of 18-foot catamarans — sailed without electronics — into a modern yacht fleet, and it has done so without ever owning a clubhouse. That, the club cheerfully concedes, is not unique. What it claims as genuinely unique is continuity: yachting competitions run without interruption for some forty-three years, offshore and inshore alike, paused only by Covid. The fleet today mixes deep-keel offshore vessels with trailer yachts, cruisers alongside outright racers, with typical river races drawing four to nine boats from twenty to forty feet. Racing happens every Sunday of the year, plus twilight pointscore races on Thursday afternoons during daylight saving — over seventy races on the 2026 calendar. The club's personality shows brightest in its traditions. Its whimsical honours include the Katiward Broken Oar, a hard-luck trophy, and the delightfully obscure Order of the Pike Sword and Grappling Hook, dusted off for the popular Basia Dworak; three members sailing since the early 1980s have been inducted into the club's own joking invention, the Royal Order of

Sailing club

Few dinghy clubs in Australia race with a backdrop like this one: the Melbourne skyline rising directly behind the course, barely three or four kilometres from the city centre. Port Melbourne Yacht Club occupies the foreshore at 38 Beach Street, on the corner of Beaconsfield Parade, and the club bills itself as among Port Phillip's leading off-the-beach clubs — a claim its busy multi-class program does much to support. Dinghies and catamarans launch straight off the sand into open bay water, with public transport close enough that a sailor can finish a race and be back in the CBD inside the hour. This is a volunteer-run club where members manage their own racing, and it sails on the traditional country of the Yaluk-ut Willam people of the Boon Wurrung, an acknowledgement the club makes formally. It holds category A affiliation with Australian Sailing, reflecting a full racing and training operation rather than a casual beach group. The membership skews toward people who want competitive small-boat racing without a long drive: after-work rigging, Saturday-afternoon starts, and a boat park within sight of the West Gate. The clubhouse does double duty in a way that keeps the place f

Sailing club

Mixed in Lytton, QLD.

Sailing club

Where the Clarence River meets the sea, Port of Yamba Yacht Club has built the kind of easygoing sailing scene that river-mouth towns do so well. Founded in 1998, it is a young club by NSW standards, and it wears that youth lightly — the door is open to sailing yachts and motor boats alike, and the NSW tourism listing for the club promises "safe sailing for all ages in all types of sailing boats from ocean-going keel boats to off-the-beach dinghies". On a typical race day around a dozen yachts front the starter, drawn from a pool of perhaps twenty-five to thirty boats, according to a visiting ocean sailor who also described Yamba's sailing fraternity as "awfully good people" with a strong local scene. The clubhouse sits inside the Yamba Marina at 3 Yamba Road, and much of club life orbits it. A large social contingent keeps the calendar busy between regattas, and the club's own invitation — "visitors are always welcome for a drink, a chat and a sail" — sums up the tone. The club's licensed bar, known as the YAMBAR, opens from five o'clock on Fridays and on every race day, and a monthly newsletter keeps far-flung members in the loop. Twice a year the club hosts full regattas drawin

Sailing club

Dinghy in Largs North, SA.

Sailing club

Friendly sailing club adjacent to Soldiers Point Marina, maintaining two long-term club moorings (to 38ft and 48ft) and a free 23-hour short-term mooring for members and visiting yachts by arrangement. Clubhouse open to visiting sailors on club days.

Sailing club

Dinghy in Port Vincent, SA.

Sailing club

On Wickham Back Beach in the Pilbara, within sight of the conveyors and ship loaders of Rio Tinto's Cape Lambert iron ore port, a volunteer-only yacht club has kept recreational sailing alive since 1973. Port Walcott Yacht Club Inc, a not-for-profit organisation, describes itself as a volunteer-only operation providing facilities for water sports — sailing and kayaking above all — and the description is literal: there is no paid staff, and visitors' reviews praise the hospitality while gently warning that opening times depend on who is available to unlock the doors. When the doors do open, the club becomes a social anchor for the coast between Wickham and Point Samson. Its volunteer-run fish and chips have their own following, with Fish and Chips Sundays drawing locals to the marina-side setting, and the club's Facebook page carries the running updates that substitute for a formal calendar. The club also holds a Western Australian liquor licence, underscoring its role as the district's waterfront gathering place. Some of the biggest days on its calendar are not sailing days at all: the club plays host to the weigh-in and presentation evening for the Pilbara Fishing Extravaganza, de

Sailing club

On the north-facing coast of the Bellarine Peninsula, where the shoreline looks straight across Port Phillip toward the Melbourne skyline, Portarlington Sailing Club has built a reputation as one of the region's friendliest entry points into the sport. The club sits at Point Richards, a short hop east of the town pier, and runs the kind of program a community club should: racing every Sunday from September to April, a Winter Series for the committed, and an open door for visitors, who can sail for ten dollars a boat under Australian Sailing's SailPass arrangements. The fleet reflects how people actually sail in this part of the bay. Monohulls and catamarans race off the beach, while trailable yachts get their own cruising days, so a family can graduate from a borrowed training dinghy to a weekend trailer sailer without changing clubs. The club is volunteer-run and affiliated with Australian Sailing, sailing under the PT prefix, and it leans on its neighbours in the best way — through Sail Bellarine, a cooperation with clubs such as Indented Head Yacht Club that shares volunteers and events across the peninsula's sailing strip. Who sails here? Juniors working through the Green Fle

Sailing club

Portland wears its age lightly. The club promotes its home as Victoria's second-oldest town, and Portland Yacht Club carries that maritime inheritance onto the water every week — a family-centred, mixed-fleet sailing club on the Portland harbour foreshore, where beginners share the ramp with hardened offshore sailors. The club states its values plainly — "confidence, independence, excellence, participation, community spirit and respect" — and its program is built to deliver each of them, from seven-year-olds in club Optimists to keelboat crews finishing twilight races as the sun drops over the bay. The club credits its home conditions with sharpening its sailors. Portland's turbulent weather and strong southern oceans, the club says, have produced "many successful ocean racers and Australian championship holders" — and the regional record backs the claim's substance. Yachting Western Victoria, the association founded in Portland on 31 October 1959, counts Olympian Paul McKenzie and multiple world champions, including in the A Class catamaran, among the region's products, with national and state titles spread across Fireball, Taipan, RL24, Minnow and Flying Ant classes. Portland YC

Sailing club

Club marina on the sheltered southern side of Princess Royal Harbour offering small, large and catamaran pen hire, club moorings, hardstand boat storage and undercover dinghy storage, with visiting boats accommodated at a nightly rate.

Sailing club

Dinghy/Trailer sailer in Proserpine, QLD.

Sailing club

On a bushland shoreline in the Camden Haven, a small volunteer club has been quietly making a name far beyond its postcode. Queens Lake Sailing Club sails from its own reserve at Lakewood, near Laurieton on the NSW Mid North Coast, and in recent seasons local reporting has described it as "a sought-after country location for sailing regattas" — a claim backed by a 2025–26 calendar that included the Taipan catamaran State Championships, the Maricat National Championships and MG14 skiff events. For a lake that most sailors outside the Hastings could not find on a chart, that is serious company to keep. The engine room is unashamedly local. Commodore Dave Castleton, a plumber by trade, has driven the club's growth through sponsorship deals and sheer volunteer hours, and he credits the results to "the generosity of their sponsors and the significant amount of hard work put in by volunteers". Castleton walks the talk as a sailor too: he crewed aboard Inner Circle in the 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, then collected the club's Commodore's Award at the June presentation. The culture is community-first — schools partnerships, junior development, cheap access to boats — yet the racin

Sailing club

Skiffs in Manly, NSW.