Milang Regatta Club

Milang Regatta Club is on the waterfront at 1 Woodrow Drive, Milang, on the western shore of Lake Alexandrina, about an hour south-east of Adelaide. It is affiliated with Australian Sailing and runs two headline events: the annual Milang Regatta in late November, and a three-day regatta over the March long weekend with plenty of racing and social activities.

Milang is also where the Milang-Goolwa Freshwater Classic begins — one of Australia's biggest freshwater yacht races, run by the Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club. Contact the club at info@milangregattaclub.com.au. See our Milang sailing clubs page for more.

Milang Regatta Club is focused on regatta sailing, and its two main events are the best way to get involved: the Milang Regatta in late November and the three-day March long weekend regatta. Both mix racing with a social program, and they are a friendly way for newer sailors to experience lake racing alongside experienced crews.

For structured learn-to-sail courses in the region, Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club and Goolwa Sailing Club both run training programs. Our guide to sailing safety for beginners is also worth a read.

The club is on the waterfront at Woodrow Drive, Milang, on the western shore of Lake Alexandrina — the largest of the Lower Lakes at the end of the River Murray, near the Fleurieu Peninsula. The lake is big and open, and in places it is shallow, so a short, sharp chop can build when the breeze gets up — part of what makes racing here a challenge.

The Milang-Goolwa Freshwater Classic starts off Milang and crosses the south-west of the lake before following the River Murray channel past Clayton and under the Hindmarsh Island Bridge to finish in front of the Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club. For other clubs on the Lower Lakes, see Clayton Bay Boat Club and Meningie Sailing Club.

Racing between Milang and Goolwa goes back to 1966, when two wooden river boats, Edith and Esther, raced from Goolwa to Milang to settle whose boat was faster. A proper race followed on 27 December 1966, and it grew into the Freshwater Classic — now run by the Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club and sailed from Milang to Goolwa since 1976. Milang Regatta Club remains a home for sailing in the town, with its own regattas bringing sailors to the Milang waterfront each year.

Milang itself has a long maritime story. The town was surveyed in December 1853, and between about 1860 and 1880 it was an important port on the River Murray system. It's the only town on the shores of the main body of Lake Alexandrina. The first Milang jetty was built in 1856, and in 1869 it was extended from 67 metres to 217 metres to serve the paddle steamers and cargo boats that crossed the lake and headed up the Murray. Today the regatta club keeps that waterfront busy, bringing fleets of yachts back to the old river port.