Our History

St George Sailing Club was founded in 1897 making it one of the oldest sailing clubs in Australia.

For the first 15 years our senior class was 14ft skiffs. In 1912 this changed to 16ft skiffs. Around then, boats were generally clinker or carvel-planked. In the 1940s, marine plywood became available, and lighter faster skiffs started appearing. At the time 16ft skiffs generally had no less than 5 people on board. In the 1950’s, the class rules were changed to allow a minimum of four hands. By the early 1980’s, 16ft skiffs were changing from plywood to fibreglass construction. Skiffs added a large double luffed spinnaker as well as the traditional ballooner style. In the mid-1980’s, 16ft skiffs became 3 handed and in the 1990’s, took on narrower hull shapes with a large asymmetrical spinnaker.

In the early 1960’s the clubhouse had to relocate to the east to make way for construction of the new Captain Cook Bridge. Before the bridge was built, the skiffs had to be cautious about not becoming entangled in the cables for the vehicle punts that ran between Taren Point and Sans Souci.

Later the club added new classes of boats including VJs, Skates, Gwen 12s, Cherubs, Flying Ants, Skyriders, MG14/NS14, sailboards and most recently Foiling Moths.

In 2010/11 the Club went into administration following losses in the licenced club. We emerged from administration some months later under the wing of Manly 16ft Skiff Sailing Club Ltd.

The Clubhouse closed in August 2019 in preparation for a major redevelopment with the new Clubhouse and sailing facilities reopening in 2022.