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Sailing club

Western Australia's far south-west corner is where two oceans meet — the Southern and the Indian — off Cape Leeuwin, and the nearest town to that meeting point is Augusta. It is an unlikely spot for anything half-hearted, and Augusta Yacht Club fits the setting: a small, self-reliant club founded in 1994 that has grown past fifty members and built its life on the calmer water behind the cape, along the Blackwood River and the broad estuary known as Hardy Inlet. The club is affiliated with Australian Sailing in category 21, the smallest-club band, and can be reached through its secretary at secretary@augustayachtclub.com.au or on 0419 953 369. Its clubhouse, opened in 2000, stands on the banks of the Blackwood, and in 2020 members renovated it themselves — recladding the exterior and reconfiguring the interior so it could house a fleet of St Ayles rowing skiffs alongside a clubroom for about fifty people. That skiff program, rowing from the yacht club three mornings a week, brought in roughly twenty-five new members in a single year and pushed membership close to seventy — a striking reinvention for a sailing club nearing its third decade. Add a Sunday racing rhythm that the local P

Sailing club

Tides run the show in Broome. This Kimberley town sits on some of the most dramatically tidal water in Australia — as general context, the ebb and flow off Cable Beach is measured in metres, not centimetres — so it is no surprise that the local sailing club arranges its life around the tide tables. Broome Sailing Club meets on Sundays every second week, with session times that shift to suit the water, launching off the beach at Gantheaume Point, the red-rock headland closing off Cable Beach's southern end. It is a club without a permanent clubhouse: as of 2019 it was collaborating with the Shire of Broome and the Broome Turf Club on designs for a permanent base at a proposed Gantheaume Point location, and its old website has since gone quiet. Honesty requires a caveat here: the club is absent from Australian Sailing's present affiliation fee schedule, so its formal status is unverified, and much of what is publicly known dates from a 2019 Australian Sailing feature and Shire of Broome documents. What those sources show is a small, welcoming, beach-launched operation — public sailing days with hire boats available, day membership from ten dollars, a barbecue after the afternoon sail

Sailing club

Dinghy/Multihull in Busselton, WA.

Sailing club

Mixed in Busselton, WA.

Sailing club

Friendly club at 2 West Street, Carnarvon, on the Fascine channel with a 34-pen marina in a palm-tree-lined basin designed to withstand cyclones, built largely by volunteers in two stages (22 pens around 2003 and 12 more by 2006). Amenities include water, power, showers, laundry and a clubhouse.

Sailing club

Club marina on the Swan River at Claremont accommodating 229 vessels up to 25 m after a 59-pen expansion in 2014-15, plus swing moorings, a pay-at-pump petrol and diesel bowser and security-gated jetties with CCTV.

Sailing club

Dinghy/Multihull in Coogee, WA.

Sailing club

Dinghy/Multihull in Cottesloe, WA.

Sailing club

Mixed in Dampier, WA.

Sailing club

In Denmark, on Western Australia's Great Southern coast, the local sailing club puts children at the centre of everything it does. Denmark Sailing Club states its purpose openly: it is committed to giving kids and families an environment where they can discover the beauty of sailing, and that family-first character shapes the whole operation. The club sails the waters of Wilson Inlet, with boats put in at the Denmark Rivermouth, and acknowledges that it sails on Pibbulman and Menang Country. It is a summer club — the season runs from October to early April — and a small one, sitting in category 22 of Australian Sailing's affiliation schedule. Its reach, though, extends well beyond its size: Australian Sailing WA counts it among the Great Southern's recognised clubs, in company with Princess Royal Sailing Club in Albany and Walpole Yacht Club, and in January 2026 the club hosted a state-association catch-up attended by the National Race Officer and the Yachting WA President. The fleet tells the family story too — Optimists for the juniors, friendly Mirror dinghies with their red sails, and 420s for teenagers stepping up. Local businesses line up behind the club as sponsors, from the

Sailing club

Mixed in Derby, WA.

Sailing club

Mixed in Dongara, WA.

Sailing club

On the edge of Geographe Bay, where peppermint trees lean over the sand at Quindalup, stands a clubhouse its members quite literally raised themselves. Dunsborough Bay Yacht Club is a not-for-profit community organisation at 307 Geographe Bay Road, Dunsborough, run entirely by volunteers — a mixture, by the club's own account, of locals and of sailors who travel down from Perth and further afield. It sits on Australian Sailing's national affiliation schedule, yet it has kept the character of the beach gathering it grew from: boats launch straight off the sand, rigs go up on a grassed lawn, and the social centre is a member-run bar whose balcony looks across what members like to call the Quindalup panorama. The setting does much of the persuading. Quindalup Beach fronts the calm northern sweep of the bay, and the moorings just offshore fill through summer with power and sailing vessels making the seasonal migration down the coast from Perth. Australian Sailing's Western Australian general manager has described this stretch of water as arguably among the finest places anywhere on earth to sail — praise the club is understandably pleased to repeat. Amenities are practical rather tha

Sailing club

Since 1933, sailors have gathered where Petra Street runs down to meet the Swan River at East Fremantle. The club that grew there — East Fremantle Yacht Club — is one of the older sailing institutions in Western Australia, and it wears that longevity lightly: behind the riverside facade is a busy, self-described family club that a marina directory ranks as among the top sailing clubs in Perth, a judgement the club itself is happy to pass on. The physical plant reflects nine decades of steady building. Members enjoy a clubhouse with bar and restaurant, a function centre, an observation lounge looking over the river, a gymnasium and sauna, and a substantial field of pens and moorings completed by a major development in 2008. The club appears on Australian Sailing's national affiliation schedule, and its reach extends beyond sailing alone — a partnership with the Cockburn Dragon Boat Club has been running since 1993, and power boat members have been part of the constitution since 1960. River sailing defines the experience. The Swan at East Fremantle offers sheltered, flat-water racing within sight of the working port, and on summer afternoons a cooling breeze funnels reliably uprive

Sailing club

Mixed in Eaton, WA.

Sailing club

Seven hundred kilometres southeast of Perth, where the Southern Ocean meets one of Australia's whitest coastlines, Esperance Bay Yacht Club occupies a foreshore site in the centre of town. The address — Lot 921 The Esplanade, on the corner of William Street — puts the clubhouse a short stroll from everything Esperance has, with views across the bay and the club's own marina. Founded in 1995, it is young by yacht club standards, yet its business plan holds up the member-built clubhouse as proof of the membership's drive and determination, and that volunteering energy remains the club's defining trait. The numbers tell a story of broad community reach: the 2020/21 year counted 76 senior, 79 associate and 55 junior members, and the clubhouse trades as a licensed restaurant every Friday evening throughout the year, serving more than a hundred meals a week. The same business plan calls the venue the leading function space in Esperance, and it genuinely does host weddings, funerals and business events alongside the sailing. Affiliated with Australian Sailing, the club also holds a reciprocal relationship with the Puerto Galera Yacht Club in the Philippines — an unusual international thr

Sailing club

At the top of Western Australia's coral coast, some 1,260 kilometres north of Perth, Exmouth Yacht Club serves a town that exists between two extraordinary bodies of water: Exmouth Gulf on one side and the Ningaloo region on the other. It is a volunteer-based club on the gulf foreshore, and everything about it reflects remote-area practicality — membership for the 2022/23 year cost just $75 for an adult, $10 for a junior aged five to seventeen, and $20 for a social non-sailing member, with the membership year running from 1 July to 30 June. New members require committee approval, and provisional members hold full rights except a vote. The club sits on Australian Sailing's affiliation schedule despite its isolation, and that connection matters: qualified instructors fly in from Perth or interstate each spring to run the training season, because a town this far from anywhere cannot grow its own coaching base unaided. The clubhouse opens every Sunday — from 4pm in the April-to-September off-season and 5pm through the October-to-March sailing months — welcoming members, guests and visitors for a $2 visitor fee. Venue enquiries go to a dedicated events address, while the club secretary

Sailing club

Keelboat in Fremantle, WA.

Sailing club

Club marina between the Fishing Boat Harbour and South Beach with about 670 berths from 10 m to 45 m and a community of over 3,000 members. Facilities include a cafe/bar and laundry, and live-aboard vessels are accommodated.

Sailing club

Every February, the quiet foreshore at West Busselton turns into one of the busiest race hubs in Western Australia, when Geographe Bay Yacht Club runs its annual Race Week — an event organisers bill as the state's leading yachting regatta, drawing national and international skippers and crews. Yet the host is, by Australian Sailing's own description, possibly among the tiniest clubs in WA: a membership quorum of roughly 80 senior and 90 junior members as of 2020, but one the national body adds is just as recognisable in the sailing world as any larger rival. That contrast — small club, big reputation — is the essence of GBYC. It occupies grounds on Margaret Street, West Busselton, overlooking the sheltered curve of the bay it is named after, sharing the site with the Geographe Outriggers and the Naturaliste Game & Sport Fishing Club, and enjoying broad acres of lawn for boat rigging. It is affiliated with Australian Sailing and reachable on 08 9752 2522 or admin@gbyc.com.au. The silverware backs the reputation. More than 30 State Championships have been decided on its home water, alongside the 2015 World Tasar Championship, and eleven Australian Champions have emerged from its fl

Sailing club

Established in 1914 on the shores of Geraldton's Champion Bay, the club offers marina pens, learn-to-sail programs for all ages and competitive racing across four fleets.

Sailing club

Mixed in Guilderton, WA.

Sailing club

Boat and sailing club at Dampier's Hampton Harbour, the gateway to the islands of the Dampier Archipelago, offering exceptional access to scenery, beaches, sailing, fishing and diving with a licensed clubhouse for members.

Sailing club

It began with a submission about boat ramps. When the Department for Marine and Harbours proposed building Hillarys Boat Harbour in 1983, people from the Marmion Angling and Aquatic Club asked for additional launching facilities — and from that request grew the association that, in 1986, inaugurated Hillarys Yacht Club. Four decades on, the club is one of the largest on the Perth coast: 270 on-the-water pens, a two-storey clubhouse with a restaurant, function room and bar overlooking the ocean upstairs, and a stated vision, in the club's own words, of becoming the leading club on the coast. Even the burgee has a pedigree — a blue pennant with a yellow cross and yellow "H" in its upper hoist, drawn up by a member and changed just once in the club's life. Activities run well past sailboat racing: the club lists racing and casual sailing alongside diving, angling, kayaking, paddle boarding, power boating and on-water training courses, and its values statement emphasises youth development and training, participation by families, competition kept friendly, safe practice and care for the natural environment. Hillarys Boat Harbour itself, a late-1980s marina development on the northern