Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club

About Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club

One winter evening in August 1854, eight men met for dinner at the Goolwa Hotel to organise a party — marking the first anniversary of the day the local shipyard's first cargo vessel was launched. From that dinner, the club traces its origin, and on the strength of a formation as the Goolwa Regatta Club some time before August 1854 it claims the title of Australia's oldest continuously operating yacht club — a claim repeated by Australian Sailing but belonging to the club itself. Its letterhead carries the words "FOUNDED 1854".

Whatever the title's precise standing, the pedigree is remarkable: the club existed within eighteen years of European settlement establishing the Province of South Australia, and its founding purpose was to run an annual regatta pitting Goolwa's fishing fleet against the whalers of Victor Harbor. Today the club sits at 112 Barrage Road in the old river port near the Murray's mouth, affiliated with Australian Sailing in the middle of the state's fee bands, with a marina accommodating 106 boats to 12 metres and a boat ramp that can launch or retrieve two vessels at once.

Recognition keeps coming: it collected the Category B Club of the Year title at the 2024 South Australian Sailing Awards and went on as an SA finalist at the national awards, then figured among the 2025 Clubs SA community award finalists in the Small Club of the Year category. Inside, a licensed bar, lounge and showers serve members, while the dining room caters for seventy seated guests and casual functions for more than two hundred. Fiona Pitcairn manages the office.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

Goolwa, South Australia