Rhyll Yacht Club

About Rhyll Yacht Club

Rhyll Yacht Club is exactly what a small coastal sailing club should be: volunteer-run, family-friendly and unpretentious, perched on the foreshore of a quiet fishing village on Phillip Island's north-east corner. Bass Coast Shire describes it as known for excellent facilities and an easy-going atmosphere, and that pairing sums the place up — the clubhouse and boat yard are genuinely well sorted, yet nobody is keeping score of anything but the racing. Dinghies, multihulls, trailerable yachts and keel boats all find a start line here, and the club welcomes each with equal enthusiasm.

The sailing calendar runs from October to April, and woven through it is a social program that would shame clubs many times its size. Roughly monthly gatherings, often pegged to public holiday weekends like New Year, Australia Day and Easter, keep the clubhouse humming, and social memberships mean partners and friends who never touch a sheet are still part of the place.

Governance is thoroughly grassroots: a committee elected each June at the annual general meeting, every member of it carrying a portfolio, and representation on the Yachting Western Port Committee of Management tying Rhyll into the wider bay community alongside Cowes and Newhaven. Affiliations run from Yachting Australia and Yachting Victoria through to the regional Yachting Western Port body, plus the various class associations, keeping the club connected upward as well.

For a visiting sailor, the appeal is simple — genuine Western Port racing, a two-storey clubhouse overlooking the course area, and a crowd that will talk sailing with you over a drink long after the boats are packed away.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

Rhyll, VIC