Sailing club
Whitsunday Sailing Club Marina Berths
Whitsunday Sailing Club Marina Berths (Airlie Beach) provides marina berths and swing moorings close to the club on Port of Airlie / Pioneer Bay, plus on-site boat storage for tenders, off‑beach sailing boats, trailable yachts and motor boats (up to 12 m). Marina berths listed are 12 m and 18 m located on the “I” arm at Port of Airlie and are offered for short- or long-term lease. Swing moorings are available north of the club on Pioneer Bay. The club operates from Airlie Beach and publishes a contact phone number for enquiries.
About
Whitsunday Sailing Club Marina Berths at a glance
Whitsunday Sailing Club Marina Berths (Airlie Beach) provides marina berths and swing moorings close to the club on Port of Airlie / Pioneer Bay, plus on-site boat storage for tenders, off‑beach sailing boats, trailable yachts and motor boats (up to 12 m). Marina berths listed are 12 m and 18 m located on the “I” arm at Port of Airlie and are offered for short- or long-term lease. Swing moorings are available north of the club on Pioneer Bay. The club operates from Airlie Beach and publishes a contact phone number for enquiries.
Service area: Airlie Beach, Whitsundays, QLD
- Region
- Whitsundays
- Club type
- Sailing club
- Australian Sailing
- Not listed as affiliated
- Primary classes
- Sailing club
About Whitsunday Sailing Club Marina Berths
Sailing club with a limited number of 12m and 18m marina berths on 'I' arm at Port of Airlie, leased short or long term to members, plus swing moorings on Pioneer Bay. Home of Airlie Beach Race Week.
Sailing waters
For a visiting yacht, the practical play is to pick up a club mooring or berth and treat the clubhouse as your shore base: shower at the adjacent marina amenities, eat at the bistro, and walk five minutes into Airlie Beach for supermarkets, chandleries and the lagoon. Boathaven Bay, immediately south of the point, is one of the calmest corners of the Airlie foreshore, and the Port of Airlie marina next door is the town's ferry and cruise-tender terminal, so the area hums with passengers heading to Hamilton and Daydream islands; its waterfront dining strip, including La Marina, Rufus and Co and a gelateria, gives berth holders alternatives to the club. Racing sailors should time a visit for August, when Race Week fills Pioneer Bay and the Whitsunday Passage with fleets racing around the islands under the winter trade winds, though berths and moorings anywhere in town become scarce weeks out and prices rise accordingly. The trades blow strongly from the south-east through winter, and Pioneer Bay can develop an uncomfortable chop at mid-tide, so mooring pickups are easiest at the top or bottom of the tide. Shallow spots fringe the bay's southern edge, and newcomers should follow the leads into the marina rather than cutting corners across the bay. The club's twilight series on Wednesday afternoons is open to visiting boats and is the fastest way to meet the local fleet; the bar afterwards is where crews are recruited for the bigger offshore events. Everything about the place runs on volunteer energy, and visitors who join in tend to be welcomed quickly.
Club history
The Whitsunday Sailing Club occupies one of the best pieces of waterfront real estate in Airlie Beach, sitting right on Airlie Point between Boathaven Bay and Pioneer Bay with an open deck facing the Coral Sea. Locals routinely call it the best spot in town, and on a Wednesday afternoon, when the twilight fleet short-tacks past the club at 4.30pm, it is hard to argue. The club is first and foremost a sailing institution rather than a commercial marina: it is the home and organising body of Airlie Beach Race Week, a regatta founded in 1990 as the Hog's Breath Cruising Classic after cafe founder Don Algie sailed his 55-foot sloop Storm into the Whitsundays and saw the potential for a mainland event to complement Hamilton Island Race Week. The regatta has since grown into a week-long fixture drawing more than 130 boats and upwards of 6,000 attendees each August, with the club lawn transformed into the Festival of Sailing village. Against that backdrop the club's actual berthing operation is deliberately modest: a small cluster of 12 and 18-metre marina berths on I arm of the neighbouring Port of Airlie marina, held by the club and leased to members, plus a handful of swing moorings on Pioneer Bay directly north of the clubhouse. The licensed clubhouse itself, with its restaurant, bar and function rooms open seven days, is the real amenity, and it doubles as the social headquarters for visiting crews, race officials, volunteers and the town's remarkably active sailing community year-round.