Melbourne Trailable Yacht Club

About Melbourne Trailable Yacht Club

Ask a Melbourne Trailable Yacht Club member where the clubhouse is and the honest answer is: wherever the boats happen to be. MTYC is a family-orientated club for trailer-sailer sailors, with no fixed home of its own — its fleet lives on trailers, its racing happens on Port Phillip and its members are drawn from across Melbourne, around Victoria and even interstate. Boats in the fleet range from four to eight metres, taking in everything from compact weekender-style pocket cruisers to quick sports-style trailer yachts.

The club's welcoming posture is practical rather than rhetorical. Boat ownership is not required to belong, and the club is plain about why: social activities fill the calendar and crew are always in demand. For anyone weighing up a first trailer yacht — or simply wanting regular sailing without the cost of a boat — that crewing culture is the real product. A skipper gets willing hands; a newcomer gets sea time, tuition by osmosis and a front-row education in how these versatile little yachts are rigged, launched and raced.

Competition is organised around four series across the year — Summer, Winter, Twilight and a dedicated Women's Sailing Series — with handicap scoring that rewards both the boat's class performance and the individual skipper's improvement. The Four Points Race, a lap of northern Port Phillip open to all trailable yachts, serves as the club's invitation to the wider trailer-sailer world, drawing twenty-one entrants in 2025 across classes from Castle 650s and RL24s to Noelex 25s and Careel 18s. Born from the home-built Hartley TS16 movement of the early 1970s, the club celebrated its fiftieth year in 2023 — a half-century of racing boats that live on the road.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

St Kilda West, VIC