Saltwater Veterans Sailing Project

Saltwater Veterans Sailing Project (SVSP) is an Australian Sailing–affiliated club and ACNC-registered health-promotion charity that runs inclusive sailing programs for current and former ADF members and their families. SVSP operates a mobile Discover Sailing Centre and delivers short session sailing, structured coursework, regattas and community sailing days, plus instructor and powerboat courses. The organisation runs regular sailing activities across multiple waterways and regions, and offers volunteer instructor roles and funded participation options for veterans.

The delivery mechanism that sets SVSP apart is its Australian Sailing mobile Discover Sailing Centre — an accredited training operation that travels to the sailors rather than waiting for them to find a club. Under memoranda of understanding with partner clubs, it runs insured, compliant veterans' programs at venues up and down the east coast — Manly Sailing, Manly Yacht Club and Palm Beach Sailing Club in Sydney, Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club and Gosford Sailing Club further north, and Mooloolaba Yacht Club in Queensland — and it deploys "fly-away instructor teams" into regional and remote communities where isolation bites hardest. No sailing background is assumed: sessions run in sheltered water with experienced skippers and coaches, lifejackets are mandatory, and strong swimming is explicitly not required.

Engagement is deliberately choose-your-own. A first-timer might take a gentle social sail; another veteran might crew on an Elliott 7 in club racing; a third might work through structured coursework toward skippering or Safety Boat qualifications. Selected locations add stand-up paddleboarding and wing foiling. The adaptive pathway is serious, too — veterans have trained through Hansa camps run with Sailability partners and gone on to compete internationally, as Sharon and Paula did at the 2025 Hansa World Championships on Pittwater, Sharon travelling from Brisbane with a 210-kilogram electric wheelchair.

Beyond sailing instruction, the organisation is a DVA-registered advocacy body with Wellbeing Advocates accredited through the Advocacy Training and Development Program, so help with the claims and support system sits alongside the sailing. Programs target adults primarily, with family and youth places at selected events. The wellbeing outcomes claimed — less social isolation, better mental and physical health, growing confidence and leadership — are consistent with published university research on the benefits of water-based activity.

Manly on Sydney's Northern Beaches is the home port, but SVSP's real venue is a roster of waterways. In NSW, programs run variously on Pittwater, Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, Rushcutters Bay, Cronulla, Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Gosford, depending on the vessel and the partner club involved. Interstate, Salties sail at Mooloolaba in Queensland and are being courted toward Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula, while instructor teams have deployed as far afield as Jervis Bay, Darwin and Adelaide.

The pattern is consistent: sheltered, forgiving water for confidence-building, with bigger coastal and harbour venues available as skills and appetite grow. The project keeps no clubhouse of its own; instead it borrows water and hardstand from a rotating cast of partner clubs — Manly Sailing, Manly Yacht Club, Palm Beach Sailing Club, Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club, Gosford Sailing Club and Mooloolaba Yacht Club among them — which keeps overheads low and the emphasis on instruction rather than infrastructure.

Pittwater holds the founding ground. The project found its first home at Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club at Newport, whose support in introducing veterans to sailing the co-founders still describe as invaluable, and the estuary remains one of their most treasured sailing locations. It is easy to see why the fit worked: Pittwater offers protected water ringed by national park, reliable afternoon breezes and a club infrastructure — pontoons, training rooms, keelboat fleets — built for exactly the kind of keelboat crewing SVSP teaches.

The relationship came full circle at the 2025 awards, where RPAYC took out the NSW Category A Club of the Year on the same night its former tenants won Category B and then the national prize. For veterans joining today, that spread of locations means a program is rarely far away — and that a Saltie who moves cities can usually find the tribe again at another ramp.

The founding story is compact. In 2017, after 18 years in the Navy, Scott Reynolds and three veteran mates — none of whom had sailed — got afloat on the Pittwater estuary and entered racing as "Four Men in a Boat". With Jen Reynolds, he shaped the idea into a project, and Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club gave it a home. The name Saltwater Veterans arrived in 2018.

The formal structure followed in September 2022, when SWV Ltd — which trades as Saltwater Veterans Sailing Project — was formally constituted as a health promotion charity registered with the charities regulator, carrying deductible gift recipient status and recognition as an Australian Sailing club, giving the grassroots movement a governance backbone and fundraising reach.

Momentum since has been steep. Early growth was carried by what the founders call salty volunteers, by yacht clubs and by sponsors such as Young Veterans, with local RSL sub-branches joining later. Registrations passed 1,040 in 2024 alone. The project's sailors reached international competition in 2025 at the Hansa Worlds on Pittwater, the same year it announced its Melbourne expansion intent and began actively seeking donated sail-training vessels to deepen veterans' education.

Then came the double at the 2025 Australian Sailing Awards — NSW/ACT Club of the Year in Category B, followed by the national Club of the Year title — official confirmation that a club invented to heal veterans had become, in the sport's own judgement, a model for what a sailing club can be. The navy, gold and light-blue burgee with its fouled anchor now flies at partner clubs across three states.