Colac Yacht Club

Western Victoria's sailing tradition runs through Colac. The local club stands on the shore of Lake Colac, described as the largest natural freshwater lake in the state, and it carries itself with the quiet assurance of an organisation that may be older than almost any other in this directory — the club states that it was established more than 135 years ago, though the precise founding year has been lost to the record.

What is certain is the character of the place today: a family-friendly country club whose stated mission is fostering sailing and opening it up to the wider community, catering for everything from off-the-beach dinghies to trailable yachts in an atmosphere it describes as competitive and relaxed at once. The honour roll, the club says, includes past world champions, Olympians, and national and state titleholders across a variety of classes — names it keeps to itself, but the claim sits comfortably with the lake's long racing pedigree.

One name is firmly on the record: life member Ian Lane, whose sixty-plus years in the sport, with many championship wins and national and Victorian placings, were recognised with Honorary Lifetime Contributor honours at the 2022 Victorian Sailing Awards. Racing today centres on a Pennant Racing Series that splits into fleets such as Intermediate Mono — sailed in Impulse dinghies — and Trailable, where RL24s, a Coreel 22L and Flying Fifteens compete, with Sabres and 125s also in the mix.

For sailors in Victoria's south-west, Colac offers something the coast cannot: serious freshwater racing on a big, open lake, wrapped in one of the oldest sailing stories in the state.

The most unexpected line on Colac's program calendar has nothing to do with full-size boats at all: the club runs a Discover Remote Control Sailing Day, introducing people to the sport through radio-controlled yachts. It is a clever piece of outreach — RC sailing strips away the wet, the cold and the physical demands while teaching wind awareness, sail trim and racing tactics in their purest form, and it opens the club to older newcomers, the less mobile, and the simply curious.

On the full-size water, development happens through competition rather than classroom. The Pennant Racing Series is the backbone, and its structure reveals the fleet: an Intermediate Mono division raced in Impulse dinghies suits sailors stepping up from beginner level, while the Trailable division fields RL24s in both single and double keel configurations, a Coreel 22L and Flying Fifteens — proper inland racer-cruisers that reward crew work and give newer sailors a berth alongside experienced skippers.

Sabres and 125s also appear around the club, keeping the classic single-hander and two-up dinghy traditions alive. The club backs its on-water life with sound governance, formally supporting the Play By The Rules and Good Sports programs that underpin safe, family-oriented sport. There is no public evidence of a Tackers junior course, an accredited Discover Sailing Centre or a Sailability program, and the club does not claim them; its stated mission is accessibility in the broader sense — a welcoming country club where the path in runs through the RC sailing day, a crew spot on a trailable yacht, and the steady education of a pennant season raced against people who have known this lake for decades.

Lake Colac is a substantial sheet of water by Victorian standards — the state's largest natural freshwater lake, of volcanic origin, formed where outflows of Barongarook and Deans Creeks were blocked — and the club occupies its shoreline within easy reach of the town. Big natural lakes make honest sailing, and historic regatta reporting from this one describes a venue that can serve up a strong breeze and rough, choppy water that tests small boats properly; a freshwater chop, short and steep, is a sterner teacher than ocean swell, and generations of Colac sailors have learned their heavy-weather skills in it.

The lake's defining characteristic, though, is variability. Its level depends heavily on multi-year weather patterns, and prolonged drought has twice in recent memory emptied it almost entirely — in 2009 and once more in 2016 — leaving the yacht club's jetty, in one memorable description, "leading to nowhere". Inland sailors across Australia know this cycle: the years when the water disappears, and the wet seasons when it returns and the fleets come back with it.

When the lake is full, it offers open, uncrowded racing water with room for long courses, a genuine rarity so close to a regional centre, and the volcanic plains setting gives the place a big-sky feel quite unlike bay or river sailing. The club maintains a hire and bookings function, and contact is direct by phone or email for visiting sailors wanting to time a trip to conditions.

For anyone who has only ever sailed salt water, a pennant race on a full Lake Colac — flat light, farmland on the horizon, a working breeze and not a ferry in sight — is a reminder of how good Victorian inland sailing can be.

Exactly when Colac Yacht Club began, nobody can now say with certainty. The club itself states that it was established over 135 years ago, which would place its origins before about 1890, but the documentary trail online runs out before reaching a founding date. What survives instead is a vivid series of glimpses. The earliest press mention yet located comes from the Colac Herald of 5 March 1909, reporting matter-of-factly on "the sixth event in connection with the Colac Yacht Club's trophy" — proof of an established racing club by that date.

The lake's regatta tradition runs deeper still: the Colac Regatta was first held in 1879, with an official first regatta on 13 December that year attended by the Governor of Victoria, and yachts brought down from Melbourne by rail — boats also arriving overland from Ballarat, Geelong and Warrnambool in what ranks among Victoria's earliest inland aquatic events. By 1911 Colac had joined with Ballarat and Albert Park in a Lake Club Association, contesting three named trophy races at the regatta.

The 1912 regatta brought a sensation when Joe White's new Charles Peel-built 25-footer — later known as Acrospire II — reportedly "caused quite a stir", and in 1913 Arthur Surry of Albert Park won the Costello Trophy at Colac, named for the hotel-keeping family who were major regatta supporters. One secondary account credits Owen E. Edwards, first commodore of Ballarat Yacht Club, with involvement in starting the Colac club, though the claim awaits firmer confirmation.

The modern record resumes with the club sending a team under the Lake Colac Yacht Club banner to the 1990 Asia Pacific teams racing championship, and with Australian Sailfish class history noting the boats spreading through the lakes around Colac and Camperdown in the 1960s. Today the story continues with the Pennant series and sailors like Ian Lane, whose six decades in the sport were honoured at the 2022 Victorian Sailing Awards.