Lake Wellington Yacht Club

About Lake Wellington Yacht Club

At midnight on a March long weekend, dozens of trailer-sailers slip off a dark Gippsland shoreline and point their bows east across Lake Wellington, bound for the far end of the lakes system. They are racing the Marlay Point Overnight Race, and the club that invented it — Lake Wellington Yacht Club — has been sending them into the night for more than half a century. The race has been called the Sydney-Hobart for smaller yachts and remains Australia's only overnight contest for trailer sailors, and it defines this club the way no single regatta defines most.

The club itself stands at Marlay Point, on Lake Wellington's western shore — this being the westernmost of the Gippsland Lakes — roughly twenty kilometres out of Sale. It is a trailer-sailer and off-the-beach club whose season stretches from October to April, blending social days with racing, and whose fleet list reads like a survey of Australian family sailing: Hartley 16s, Explorer 16s, RL24s, Castle 650s, Noelex 25s, Timpenny 650s and Boomerang 20s alongside Mosquitoes, Lasers, Sabres, Hansas and assorted catamarans. Nobody needs to arrive with a boat — newcomers are invited to simply ask at the club, and something will be found for them to try.

Affiliated with Australian Sailing, the club is openly volunteer-powered, welcoming helpers for race-day duties and the big overnight event, and its culture runs to shared casserole lunches on presentation day. For sailors who like their water wide, their nights long and their clubs unpretentious, Marlay Point has been a fixed point on the Gippsland calendar since 1960.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

Clydebank, VIC