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CLUB IN FOCUS: Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club (RFBYC)

RFBYC is situated between the Swan River and Indian Ocean.  The waters off RFBYC offer superb sailing conditions in protected and pristine sailing waters.  The sailing arena provides stadium style racing in the natural amphitheatre of Freshwater Bay with excellent viewing for spectators from the Clubhouse and grounds. 

Above image credit: Oliver Hartas

The Freshwater Bay Boating Club was established on 14 December 1896. Aubrey T. Sherwood, Collector of Customs, who had settled in Peppermint Grove after his marriage to Louisa Wisdom, called a meeting of eighteen of his friends that evening in his home at the corner of Irvine Street and The Esplanade. With distinguished citizen 52 year old Edward Keane in the Chair, they agreed to form a club and for that club to build a jetty for their boats out into the Bay from the foot of Irvine Street. In 1903 the Club changed its name to the Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. Roland Smith, as Commodore 1932-35 had played a crucial role in three developments during the thirties. The liquor license, the Royal Charter and the move to Keane’s Point.

13 June 1934 “His Majesty the King had been graciously pleased to approve the use of the prefix ‘Royal’ by the Freshwater Bay Yacht Club”.  From there on, the Club has grown to be the wonderful venue that it is today. Vibrant with year-round activities on the water and ashore and known around the world to be a leader in the sport of sailing and boating.

Current Commodore: Gary McNally

We have around 2,100 members across all categories and support a range of activities for all ages, junior’s right through to the seniors. There is a healthy balance across all ages and excellent participation. Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club is a family friendly environment and we see many families enjoying the Club together. Juniors are encouraged to play a role in the running of the Club and this is done through the Junior Committee. Sailing Opening Day includes a proud moment where the Junior Committee and Flag Officers stand alongside each other to celebrate all members of the Club and open the summer season.  A new initiative in recent years, members built two wooden St Ayles Skiff’s on the Club grounds. They regularly row the skiffs on the Swan River, several times a week all year round and have travelled to regional river locations and interstate to events such as the Wooden Boat Festival.

In the past few years we have focused on increasing the number of members in the 18-35 age bracket and through a review of the cost and activities, the Club is seeing a positive trend in this area.

The Strategic Plan targets an increase in the number of female full members. This is being achieved through opportunities for women to have greater participation in the activities of the club, be it sailing, power boating, rowing or social events. In sailing, the #WomenWhoSail and #GirlsWhoSail weekend events have been successful and the Women’s Keelboat Squad now has well over thirty ladies who train together with the goal of team selection for the Women’s State Keelboat Championships, now a competitive process for the RFBYC girls.

Another new initiative in 2019, the Club opened its doors to the public, hosting its first Community Open Day. The event was part of the Australian Heritage Festival, a national event by the National Trust. Two heritage tours of the grounds were held, guided by the enthusiastic members of the Club as well as a display of sailboats, power boats and training activities. Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club is blessed with members who are willing to lend a hand and volunteer their time to the Club. Many were involved in a successful day, shared their passion for the Club to the guests. A great opportunity to showcase the beautiful grounds, display a taste of all of the activities and welcome applications for membership.

Member achievements: We are very fortunate to have a long history of World Champions and Olympic medalists.  We have three honour boards at the Club recognising all our World champions, Olympic Representatives and Olympic medalists.  Special mention should go to Rolly Tasker & Huck Scott who won Australia’s first Olympic medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne where they won silver in the Sharpie Class.  Other Olympic medalists are Belinda Stowell, a Gold medal at the 2000 Games in the 470 Class and Elise Rechichi a Gold medal at the 2008 Games in the 470 Class.   Peter Gilmour is also a stand-out on our honour boards, winning multiple World Match Racing Championships, a World Two Ton Championship and World 12 Metre Championship.  Peter’s sons, David, Sam and Lachy Gilmour are all World Champions in either team racing or match racing.

More recently, we had members competing in the World Sailing Cup Series in Japan, Matt Wearn (Laser), David & Lachy Gilmour (49er), Caitlin Elks (49erFX) and Zoe Thomson (Laser Radial) all campaigning for selection to the Tokyo Olympics.  Zac Littlewood (18 years) is a youth sailor to watch out for in the future, having won a Laser Radial Men’s World Championship in 2018.

Club achievements: Some of the more recent achievements for the Club in its 123 year history are:

• Recognised as the Australian Sailing Club of the Year in 2016-2017 and WA Club of the Year for 5 years running.  Finalists Australian Sailing Awards for 4 years.
• Host Club to many international class events such as the Dragon, Etchells and Flying Fifteen classes held offshore.
• Successful hosting of the 2019 International WASZP Games and Australian Championship.
• Host of the 2017 World Match Racing Tour, Australia, raced in M32 class catamarans.
• 2019 is the 30 th year of the ICR, formerly the International Classes Regatta and one of the largest dinghy regattas in the state.
• Refurbishment of the Roland Smith Room and Bowline restaurant. Now a grand ballroom and members dining area with spectacular views across Freshwater Bay.
• RFBYC Training Centre becoming one of the largest Australian Sailing Training Centres in the country.
• Ongoing co-hosting of the Warren Jones International Youth Regatta for Swan River Sailing with Royal Perth Yacht Club.

Recent success stories include:

• Growth in female participation
• Retention of youth sailors and young adults
• High calibre volunteer Race Management Teams
• The Club hosted the World Match Racing Tour Australia in 2017 in the M32 Class catamarans.  This was an exciting period, in particular for our own match racing sailors, with some qualifying to compete in the event on home waters.
• In January of this year, we hosted the Dragon Nationals & World Championships and soon after we hosted the WASZP Nationals & WASZP Games.  Both significant events and an absolute pleasure for our volunteers and staff to be involved with.
• We won bids to host the Etchells Worlds in November 2020 (with RPYC and venue partner FSC), Flying 15 Worlds (with venue partner FSC) in February 2021 and the Contender Worlds in January 2022.

Classes supported and types of sailing:

               Classes:

• Optimist, O’pen Skiff, Mirror, 420, Laser, 29er, Waszp, 49er, 505, Contender, Moth
• Etchells, Dragon, Flying 15, Couta Boats, Sports Boats
• Division 1-3 Keelboats – assorted yachts ranging from 5 – 13 metres in length

               Core Club Racing:

• Twilight Sailing:  October – April (Wednesdays)
• Club Keelboat Racing:  October – April (Saturdays)
• Mid-Week Club Keelboat Racing: All year round (Thursdays)
• Off-the-Beach Racing:  October – April (Sundays)
• Frostbite Keelboat Racing:  May – September (7 race day series – Sundays)
• Dinghy Winter Series: May – September (6 race day series – Sundays)

               Offshore Racing:

               The following races are run between November and April

• Rockingham Race Regatta/IRC States/Youth Cup Series
• Bunbury & Return Race
• Roland Smith Race

Key Club events include:

• All of the above, plus
• ICR – Dinghy Regatta
• JESS Match Cup – Grade 5
• Sailing Institute Match Racing Regatta – Grade 5
• RFBYC Club Best Regatta
• Governor’s Cup pursuit race (with RPYC)
• Old Gaffers’ Regatta
• Swan River Retro Series (alternate years with RPYC)
• Warren Jones International Youth Regatta (alternate years with RPYC) – Grade 2

Programs offered:

Discover Sailing Centre – We have a strong reputation as an outstanding training facility.  Our overall participation and transition into membership has increased slightly from the previous year, resulting in strong continued growth in active junior and adult sailors at the Club.  In addition to regular school holiday and weekend programs for children and adults, our Training Centre offers a full range of programs engaging school groups, members and the public.  In 2017-18 we saw our Training Centre acknowledged as the largest Discover Sailing Centre in Australia based on total participation numbers in accredited Australian Sailing programs. 

She Sails – Women Who Sail and Girls Who Sail are camps held annually bringing female sailors together from all over WA to celebrate the fun in sailing. It’s a weekend of forming new friendships, sailing different types of boats in different formats of sailing in a relaxed & fun environment.  In addition, the Club has run for the past few years a successful Women’s Keelboat training program attracting over 30 sailors.

Sailing Institute – During the Winter months, sailors between 12 and 30 can join our squad training groups which enables experienced and professional sailors to coach and mentor young and enthusiastic sailors keen to learn from the best.  The emphasis is on opportunities for youth and young adult sailors as the Club focuses on membership retention in the 18-35 age bracket.  The Sailing Institute structure enables the young sailors to gain teamwork and communication skills using our BW8 keelboat fleet for fleet and match racing.

Adventurer’s Club – Our Adventurer’s Club has rapidly grown in popularity over the past 2 years.  The sails are scheduled once a month from October through to April on Saturday mornings.   Members are invited to participate in their own boat or borrow a Club boat to sail to a mystery destination on the river.  The focus is fun sailing under the supervision of instructors.  We regularly have anywhere between 35 and 50 sailors with one Adventure Sail, we saw 90 sailors participating. 

Members and staff of RFBYC are committed to the Club as a centre for excellence.  The focus is not just on winning, but on inspiring individuals to be active participants while enjoying and pursuing yachting and boating activities including hosting and organizing local, national and international yachting and powerboat events.