Three clubs will contest Club of the Year (Category A) at the 2026 Australian Sailing Awards, with the winner announced at the Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour on Friday, October 30.
Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron in Victoria, defending champion Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in Western Australia, and Whitsunday Sailing Club in Queensland are the finalists. The award is split into two categories in every state except Tasmania, allowing clubs to be judged against others of similar size. Judging is based on contribution to Australian Sailing's strategic pillars of Grow, Support and Win, plus six foundations covering future focus, diversity and inclusion, environmental sustainability, innovation, safety and partnerships.
Blairgowrie had a huge season. Sixty-eight keelboat races, 78 off-the-beach races, 24 sports boat races and eight regattas pulled in 284 yachts and 850 competitors across the year.
The standout event was the RS Aero Australian Championships, which drew 114 entries to become the largest RS Aero regatta in the Southern Hemisphere and helped double the club's own RS Aero fleet from 10 boats to 20. Planning is already under way for the RS Aero World Championships in January 2027. With 2,411 members, the club has built clear sailing pathways from Tackers through to adult training, and almost 400 volunteers clocked up 1,400 race management duties over the season. Sailability has operated there for 23 years.
Royal Freshwater Bay lifted membership by more than 9% this year. Its 2025 International Classes Regatta attracted more than 170 boats across 13 classes and, for the first time, incorporated the Australian Para Sailing Championships for the Hansa class, a move popular enough that the 2026 regatta will host the Para Sailing Championships again.
The WA club also hosted the Warren Jones International Match Racing Regatta, the Australian 2.4mR National Championship and the Etchells National Championship. Governance runs deep too, with nine sub-committees, a fourteen-person board, and four AGMs in a row with contested elections for its general committee positions.
Whitsunday Sailing Club's growth has been the most dramatic of the three. Membership is up 21% to 2,000, driven partly by music and lifestyle events such as Sunset Sessions and the Bloom and Latin festivals, which brought a younger, new crowd through the gates before introducing them to sailing through Discover Sailing Days.
Its flagship event, Airlie Beach Race Week, won the 2025 Innovation Award for its solar-powered event operations. A new marina and hardstand is being designed with personal lifting cranes at each berth, aimed at getting sailors of all abilities on the water independently.
