Point Leo Boat Club

About Point Leo Boat Club

The club describes itself as "a throwback to earlier days – a classic 1960's boat club", and the phrase is earned rather than nostalgic marketing. The two-level modernist clubhouse on Western Parade has stood beside Point Leo beach since 1961, its upper balcony — likened by heritage assessors to a boat deck or a ship's prow — still watching over a foreshore where families rig Lasers, launch boards and spread beach towels within the same few hundred metres.

Sailing, surfing and socialising share equal billing, which is rare among Victorian clubs. The sailing side centres on off-the-beach classes — Laser/ILCA and Impulse dinghies leading the racing, with mixed fleets around them — while the surf side taps a break that the club rates among the finest in Victoria. Stand-up paddleboarding, beach yoga and a "kids Olympics" fill out the activity list, and the social calendar runs to cocktail parties, Moonlight Cinema nights and live music. It is, in short, a beach club in the fullest sense, run for member families rather than function bookings — though members can hire the clubhouse privately between May and September.

A Mornington Peninsula heritage review found the club "has been at the social epicentre of the locality since its establishment", and recommended the building itself for the Heritage Overlay as the most architecturally notable and intact example of its type in the municipality. Membership numbers and office-bearers are not published, which somehow suits the low-key character. What matters here happens on the sand and in the water.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

Point Leo, VIC