Find the right help, close to the water.

Sailing club

Some clubs are born from racing rivalries; Goolwa Sailing Club was born from a classroom. Its roots lie in a junior sail training program that began on the Murray at Goolwa in 1995, and the full club followed in 2011 — an origin story that explains everything about its priorities. This is an accredited Australian Sailing Discover Sailing Centre, affiliated with the national body and listed in fee Band 20 on the national affiliation list, and it operates as a family-oriented, volunteer-driven organisation where annual junior membership costs eighty dollars. The committee's stated aim is keeping costs low enough that families are never priced off the water: members pay nothing extra for race nominations or boat hire, on the reasoning, as the club puts it, that everyone is a volunteer and the focus is getting kids out sailing. Australian Sailing profiled the club in a Discover Sailing Centre in Focus feature published in January 2026, singling out the striking number of instructors such a small club has developed. That teaching culture has earned formal recognition — Commodore Adam Spees collected the 2024 South Australian Instructor of the Year title. One clarification matters in thi

Sailing club

Plenty of clubs keep an old boat or two as ornaments; the Goolwa Vintage Boat Club keeps an entire fleet in racing trim. Based at Goolwa on the lower Murray, the club began life as the Vintage Boats Association and exists to keep historic wooden craft doing what they were built to do. It is affiliated with Australian Sailing in the smallest fee band, Band 22, on both the state and national lists — and it matters to get the identity right, because Goolwa has three separate affiliated clubs. This one is entirely distinct from the Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club and the Goolwa Sailing Club, though its boats race in mixed company with the former and its activities are also listed under the umbrella of the Goolwa Aquatic Club at 92 Barrage Road, which counts Goolwa Vintage Boats among its five constituent clubs. Much of what is known about the club's past comes from its long-time secretary and record-keeper, Geoff Byrnes, whose careful preservation of documents gives this small club an unusually firm documentary footing. The fleet itself is the attraction. Some of the boats launched in the 1800s are still afloat and competing on the river around Goolwa, and they have been joined by refugees f

Marina service

Houseboat marina and hire base at Blanchetown on the Lower Murray, close to the Walker Flat trailhead, operating a self-drive houseboat fleet for Murray River holidays. Family-run private hire houseboat marina at 9131 Sturt Highway, Paisley (adjacent Blanchetown), upstream of Lock 1 on the Lower Murray; hire fleet includes Reflections, Scamp and Scallywag; winner 2017 SA Tourism Award for Unique Accommodation

Sailing club

Adelaide's metropolitan coastline has produced sailing clubs for well over a century, but only one off-the-beach club there can trace an unbroken line back to 1911. Henley Sailing Club, based at 1 Seaview Road on West Beach, is described by Australian Sailing and community directories alike as Adelaide's oldest surviving off-the-beach sailing club — and the state's. It celebrated its centenary in 2011, and the clubhouse that stands today carries its own story of survival, built by members after a 1948 storm destroyed the previous premises. The club remains deliberately small: as of 2019 it numbered about seventy members, of whom forty per cent were women, with an average age of forty-one, under Commodore Damian Carey; by 2024 Brenton Scott was serving as secretary. Affiliated with Australian Sailing in fee Band 20, Henley runs on volunteer labour across every part of its operations, from the bar to administration to maintenance. Its on-water credentials are the point of pride: directories credit it with a long tradition of producing champions, and Australian Sailing notes the club has kept women in leadership roles — sailing regularly and instructing — across recent decades. Facili

Marina service

59-berth freehold marina on the seaward side of the Glenelg weir and lock, part of the Marina Pier dining and entertainment precinct. Facilities include floating and fixed berths, pump-out, refuelling, hardstand and haul-out, with 24-hour access to power, water and fuel; berths up to about 15 m are traded freehold.

Marina service

Kangaroo Island's main town port with three state government jetties (main jetty, fishermen's jetty and mooring jetty), a floating dinghy pontoon and a mooring field in the bay. No formal marina exists; visiting yachts anchor among the moorings and land at the pontoon near the town jetty.

Sailing club

A lobster on the trophy table says something about a sailing club's sense of place. At Kingston SE on South Australia's south-east coast, the Lacepede Bay Sailing Club has made its annual Lobster Regatta — held in early January — the centrepiece of its calendar, a fixture documented as far back as 1987 and still drawing fleets of catamarans, monohulls and sailboards into Lacepede Bay. The clubhouse stands on the foreshore at Marine Parade, listed by the Kingston District Council at number 94, about a kilometre south of the caravan park and barely a hundred metres from a sandy beach that runs, almost unbelievably, some 180 kilometres from Cape Jaffa to the Murray Mouth. The club holds Australian Sailing affiliation in Band 22, the smallest of the fee bands, with the SAcommunity directory recording Yachting South Australia as its parent body, and it holds its own entry in the Geoscience Australia place-name register — a club literally on the map. When exactly it was founded, no available source records, but newspaper evidence shows it well established by the mid-1980s, with a commodore, a vice-commodore and a full trophy presentation at the 1987 regatta. The club markets itself today

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Barmera, SA.

Marina service

Council-run marina in the old Lake Butler basin at Robe, connected to the sea by a channel cut in 1964, with about 100 recreational and 40 commercial berths up to 20 m. Facilities include a 24-hour credit-card diesel berth, straddle lift, hardstand and toilets/showers; the entrance channel is prone to silting and current advice should be sought from council before entry.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Largs Bay, SA.

Marina service

Private gated community-title marina 3.5 km from Mannum township, purpose-built with over 150 berths to reduce erosion from permanent riverbank moorings. Popular for houseboat holiday and retirement living, with a boat ramp, fuelling and maintenance areas, mains water, metered power and waste disposal services.

Marina service

World-class marine precinct at Snowdens Beach, Largs North, 20 minutes from Adelaide CBD, with 175 fully serviced berths for vessels up to 40 m and a 75-tonne travel lift (150 t expansion proposed). Deep-water access (min 4.5 m LAT) with 24/7 CCTV security, public boat ramp and on-site refit and repair coordination.

Marina service

210-berth marina at Wirrina Cove, 90 km south of Adelaide, taken over by the SA Government in March 2020 and run by an on-site marina manager. Offers casual and longer-term berthing for vessels up to 20 m with power, water and pump-out included, plus a double boat ramp, CCTV, fuelling station and laundry/toilet facilities.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Meningie, SA.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Milang, SA.

Sailing club

Mixed in Morgan, SA.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Normanville, SA.

Sailing club

Mixed in North Haven, SA.

Sailing club

Keelboat in Largs North, SA.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Port Augusta, SA.

Sailing club

Mixed in Port Broughton, SA.

Marina service

Recreational and commercial marina at Lincoln Cove, Port Lincoln, developed in 1986 as a fishing and tourism hub on Boston Bay. Recreational berths take vessels up to 14 m with larger vessels in the commercial arm (3-phase power available); a 24/7 credit-card fuel berth sits just outside the marina and the Marina Hotel and leisure centre are a short walk away.

Sailing club

Yacht Club (mixed) in Port Lincoln, SA.

Sailing club

Dinghy in Port MacDonnell, SA.