Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron

About Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron

Counting more than 2,200 members in recent seasons, Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron counts itself among the biggest sailing clubs anywhere on Port Phillip, and it wears that scale lightly indeed. The stated values are plain enough to fit on a burgee — "Family, Friendship, Sailing" — and the membership mix backs them up convincingly: off-the-beach dinghy sailors, J70 sportsboat crews, keelboat and powerboat owners, and a large social contingent drawn from the Mornington Peninsula's holiday population. Racing is the engine room. The calendar has carried an extraordinary procession of state, national and world championships across the decades, from Sabres and Lasers through to A-Class catamarans, Hobie Cats, Musto Skiffs and 29ers, and the summer fixture everyone circles is the Petersville Regatta for keelboats, revived by the club in December 2015 and now sailed across the Christmas–New Year window. Under Commodore Georgina Plumridge the squadron operates as a modern, professionally managed concern — it appointed its first club manager back in 1994 — yet the volunteer instinct never left. This is a club where members once made the clubhouse bricks by hand, and working bees still underpin the place. The annual Easter Art Show, first hung in 2009, channels fundraising into the patrol boat fleet that keeps the racing program safe. Visitors encounter a popular function and wedding venue trading on the bay-front aspect; sailors know it primarily as a serious racing club with an unusually soft centre, where family sailing, training fleets and accessible programs matter every bit as much as the silverware.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

Blairgowrie, VIC