Royal Geelong Yacht Club

About Royal Geelong Yacht Club

Every January, the biggest keelboat gathering in the Southern Hemisphere — as the organisers describe the Festival of Sails — rolls into Geelong, and Royal Geelong Yacht Club is the engine at the centre of it. More than 100,000 visitors descend on the waterfront for the event, the Melbourne to Geelong Passage Race opens proceedings, and the club that has run the regatta for a century becomes, for a week, the focus of Australian sailing. That alone would justify the club's standing, but RGYC is much more than its festival: a working, year-round yacht club on Corio Bay with a Sailing Academy, a busy off-the-beach program and a waterfront precinct that hums with functions and marina traffic.

The club acknowledges the Wadawurrung People as Traditional Owners of its country, and its address — 25 Eastern Beach Road, on Geelong's celebrated waterfront — places it within the city's Safe Harbour precinct, a working marina environment rather than a manicured foreshore. International sailing knows the venue well: the 2020 world championships for the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 Olympic classes were sailed here with more than 400 participants, and the 2024 Fireball World Championship followed. A biennial Wooden Boat Festival adds a heritage flavour. Olympic silver medallist Lisa Darmanin has fronted the club's junior mentoring at festival time, and the RGYC Foundation underwrites the Sailing Academy with a stated mission to foster the sport in Geelong. Whether you arrive for a world championship, a learn-to-sail course or a wedding at Events by RGYC, this is a club operating at the centre of its city's life rather than the edge of it.

Services

• Sailing club

Service area

Geelong, VIC