Sailing club
Royal Perth Yacht Club - Crawley Marina
Royal Perth Yacht Club (Crawley Marina) is a sailing club and marina on the Swan River offering marina berthing at Crawley, on-water sailing programs and learn-to-sail courses, event and club facilities, and references to marina fuel and a hardstand. The club operates from Australia II Drive, Crawley (Perth), Western Australia, and lists contact numbers for the club and a boating department.
About
Royal Perth Yacht Club - Crawley Marina at a glance
Royal Perth Yacht Club (Crawley Marina) is a sailing club and marina on the Swan River offering marina berthing at Crawley, on-water sailing programs and learn-to-sail courses, event and club facilities, and references to marina fuel and a hardstand. The club operates from Australia II Drive, Crawley (Perth), Western Australia, and lists contact numbers for the club and a boating department.
Service area: Crawley, Perth, Western Australia
- Region
- Perth Metro
- Club type
- Yacht club
- Australian Sailing
- Not listed as affiliated
- Primary classes
- Yacht club
A good club to explore for
- Keelboats and yachts
About Royal Perth Yacht Club - Crawley Marina
Royal Perth Yacht Club's principal marina in sheltered Matilda Bay on the Swan River, less than 10 minutes from the Perth CBD, with 372 floating or fixed berths for vessels up to 28 m, 38 hardstand bays, tender and kayak racks, a floating fuel dock and gatehouse security.
Sailing waters
Matilda Bay gives the marina genuinely sheltered water on the Melville Water reach of the Swan, with depths of about 2 to 3 metres at mean low water, negligible tidal flow and a straightforward approach along the river's marked channel; there are no bridges to negotiate downstream to Fremantle, so even tall rigs reach open water unhindered. Mounts Bay Sailing Club and the university boat sheds share the same reserve, and the bay's afternoon sea breeze, the Fremantle Doctor, provides some of the most consistent club racing conditions in the country. A pen at Crawley puts Rottnest Island within a comfortable day run of about 30 kilometres, with Carnac Island closer for a lunchtime anchorage, and the Fremantle Annexe serves as the staging point for ocean passages. Provisioning is metropolitan-simple: the Broadway and Hampden Road precincts at Nedlands cover cafes and basics, while full supermarkets, chandleries and every marine trade lie within a short drive. Crews flying in can be at the gatehouse within half an hour of landing. The bay does get busy: university rowers at dawn, dinghy fleets mid-morning and the ferry and pleasure traffic of a capital-city river, so berth holders learn to time manoeuvring for the quiet windows. After winter storms the river carries debris down from the upper reaches, and spring low tides expose the shallows off Pelican Point, both details locals factor into weekend planning. The clubhouse itself rewards an evening ashore: dinner over the bay with the city lights beyond the Narrows is a long-standing club tradition, and the second mast of Australia II on the foreshore is the obligatory photograph for visiting sailors.
Club history
Royal Perth Yacht Club's Crawley marina is the home basin of Australia's third-oldest yacht club, formalised as the Perth Yacht Club in 1865 from a tradition of Foundation Day regattas reaching back to 1841, granted its Royal prefix by Queen Victoria in 1890 and a warrant to fly the plain Blue Ensign in 1903. The club began at the foot of William Street on Perth Water, where siltation eventually forced the 1953 move to Pelican Point on Matilda Bay, the site it occupies today. Its place in sporting history is secure: Alan Bond's syndicates challenged for the America's Cup under the club's burgee from 1974, Australia II's winged-keel victory in 1983 ended the New York Yacht Club's 132-year hold on the trophy, and the club ran the 1987 defence off Fremantle, an event still regarded as a benchmark in Cup management. The club's entrance road was renamed Australia II Drive, and the yacht's second mast stands on the foreshore flying the Blue Ensign. Beyond the celebrity history, Crawley is a working members' marina: 372 berths in the sheltered elbow of Matilda Bay less than ten minutes from the Perth CBD, a hardstand, fuel dock and clubhouse complex, plus the Fremantle Annexe in Challenger Harbour for ocean-going members. The clientele spans Olympians to first-boat families, and the Sailability WA program has operated from the club since 2000. The club has also hosted moments that entered national folklore: it was on the clubhouse's morning-after celebrations in September 1983 that Prime Minister Bob Hawke declared any boss who sacked a worker for not turning up that day a bum. Ocean racing pedigree runs deep too, from the 1949 Corsair voyage east that missed the Sydney to Hobart start to Bill Lucas's line-honours record in the Cape Naturaliste races and the 1979 Parmelia Race from Plymouth, which the club organised to mark the state's sesquicentenary.