Sailing club

Frankston Yacht Club

Frankston, VIC

Frankston Yacht Club is listed by YouSail as a Yacht Club (mixed) in Frankston, VIC. Its listed boat classes include Yacht Club (mixed). Check the club directly for current programs, facilities and membership details.

Yacht Club (mixed)
Junior learning listed

View location ↓Official website ↗

Pride in Sport

Frankston Yacht Club contact details

Club facts and photos come from YouSail. The import date records when we received the data, not when each club detail was verified. Confirm current programs, fees and access with the club.

YouSail data imported 17 Oct 2026.

Long Island Drive, Frankston VIC 3199

Full profile on YouSail →Club website ↗Email the club

Location guide

Where to find Frankston Yacht Club

Listed address: Long Island Drive, Frankston VIC 3199, Frankston, VIC, 3199, Australia

Club racing, training and storage may use a different gate, beach or launching area. Confirm the meeting point with the club before travelling.

Get directions ↗More clubs in VIC

Sailing waters

Frankston fronts the eastern curve of Port Phillip Bay, and the club occupies one of the foreshore's natural focal points: the mouth of Kananook Creek, where the creek's boardwalk, landmark bridge and boat ramp meet the beach. The sailing water is classic eastern Port Phillip — open bay with reliable afternoon breezes through the warmer months, a sandy shoreline and enough fetch in a southerly to keep crews honest. Melbourne's skyline is visible across the water on clear days, a reminder that this is very much a city sailing venue; Frankston Station and the shopping centre are a short walk away, which makes the club unusually accessible for a bayside fleet.

The redevelopment that transformed the site was a complete rebuild: the old buildings and seawall came down, and in their place rose a replacement seawall, a beach boardwalk, boat shed, yard for boat storage, access ramp and car parking alongside the two-storey clubhouse. Inside, the building works hard. The ground floor houses patrol boat storage, public toilets, leasable community space and the café; the first floor carries the restaurant and function room with those wide bay views; and the top level serves as a safety lookout and navigation room, giving race officials a commanding view of the course area.

Boat storage and launching sit immediately alongside, so the walk from car park to waterline is short. For visiting sailors the practical notes are simple: ramp access beside the creek, storage in the yard, and a clubhouse that can feed a fleet after racing. For locals, the building has become something more — a foreshore gathering place that happens to have a yacht club at its heart.

Club details, boat categories and facilities

A broad category such as “Dinghy” or “Yacht Club” does not confirm specific active fleets. An affiliation season is shown as supplied by YouSail; an older season does not establish current affiliation.

Club type: Yacht Club (mixed)
Australian Sailing affiliation reported by YouSail: Affiliated · 2025-26
Boat or club category reported by YouSail: Yacht Club (mixed)
Kids learn to sail: Available
Membership applications: Yes
Clubhouse: Yes
Organised racing: Yes
Social sailing: Yes
Accessibility information: Not verified
Boat storage: Not verified
Launching facilities: Not verified
Bar or restaurant: Not verified

Club activities and services

Sailing club

The detailed sections below were adapted from YouSail’s earlier profile and are maintained separately from the live directory facts above. Confirm time-sensitive details with the club.

About Frankston Yacht Club

Frankston Yacht Club's clubhouse turns heads before a single sail is hoisted. The two-storey building that rose from an eleven-million-dollar redevelopment of the foreshore, designed by architect Gregory Burgess and shaped by the coastal tea tree and banksia dunes around it, opened with a ground-floor café in 2022 and carries floor-to-ceiling views sweeping one hundred and eighty degrees across Port Phillip Bay. It is a statement of intent from a club founded in 1937 and now home to around two hundred members.

The membership is broader than sailing alone: stand-up paddleboarding and kayaking have their own membership categories, and the Mornington Peninsula Triathlon Club shares the facilities. Yet sailing remains the core. The club runs its Learn2Sail program as a recognised Discover Sailing centre, races on the bay, and opens its doors to prospective members on Saturdays from May through October.

The atmosphere is deliberately family-oriented — the lounge looks over the water toward Melbourne, and the ground-floor Oliver's Corner café keeps the clubhouse humming on non-sailing days. Perched beside the mouth of Kananook Creek on Long Island Drive, a short walk from Frankston Station and the city centre, the club sits at the meeting point of creek, beach and bay, with a boardwalk, boat ramp and landmark bridge tying the precinct together.

It is a suburban sailing club that has reinvented itself without losing sight of what it was: a group of locals who simply wanted to race boats off their own beach — and who would, in time, build one of the busier sailing communities on the eastern side of Port Phillip.

Training and sailing programs

Ask what distinguishes Frankston's teaching program and the answer is breadth. The club's OutThere Sailing courses for twelve-to-seventeen-year-olds refuse to stay inside one discipline: teenagers sample dinghy sailing and keelboat sailing, take to stand-up paddleboards and get time in powerboats — an approach built to hold the attention of an age group clubs often lose. It sits inside a full Learn2Sail operation run as a recognised Discover Sailing centre under qualified Australian Sailing instructors, taking beginners and intermediates alike.

The standard pathway is all here, from Tackers for seven-to-twelve-year-olds across three levels on Saturdays with every piece of equipment supplied, while adults get their own Discover Sailing dinghy program, building from essential boat handling toward race readiness. It is a structure that lets a family arrive with no boat and no experience and end up, a season or two later, on a start line off the Frankston foreshore.

Racing development leans on the club's long competitive memory. In the 1970s and 1980s Frankston's membership was closed at four hundred and racing ran across both Saturday and Sunday; the Australia Day long weekend regatta regularly drew fields of more than one hundred and twenty boats from across the bay and country Victoria. Historic fleets included lightweight Sharpies — Carl Thurkle crewed a twenty-foot 'six-metre' example alongside Commodore Leigh Gloury — and the Yvonne 20 catamarans, which contested three Australian championships split between Frankston and Perth.

Today's sailors inherit that culture in modern boats, with the bay's afternoon breezes providing the classroom and the club's patrol boats and second-storey lookout keeping watch.

Club history

Frankston Yacht Club began in 1937, when a group of local yachting enthusiasts started sailing out of Kananook Creek. Among the founders, Bert Grice is remembered by the club as one of its greatest members, and the generation that followed him built something substantial. Carl Thurkle, named the club's first life member in 1969 when he was thirty-nine after six years as Club Captain and who lived to ninety-two, personified that era.

Through the 1970s and 1980s the club capped its membership at four hundred, raced across both days of the weekend, and — by its own fond account — stood among the strongest sailing clubs on Port Phillip. Its Australia Day long weekend regatta was the flagship fixture, often attracting more than one hundred and twenty boats from across the bay and country Victoria.

The boats of that golden period had character: lightweight Sharpies, including the twenty-footer Thurkle crewed with Commodore Leigh Gloury, and the Yvonne 20 catamarans that chased national titles between Frankston and Perth.

The twenty-first century brought a different kind of ambition. The foreshore precinct beside the creek was redeveloped in an eleven-million-dollar project that demolished the old clubhouse and seawall and replaced them with a new two-storey clubhouse, seawall, boardwalk, boat shed, storage yard and ramp. Architect Gregory Burgess — whose other work includes Peninsula Hot Springs and the refurbishment of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl — drew the building's forms from the coastal tea tree and banksia dunes. The café on the ground floor opened in 2022, and the club that began with a handful of enthusiasts on a creek bank now sails from one of the most striking clubhouses on the bay.

Details to confirm with Frankston Yacht Club

YouSail has not confirmed the following fields. This does not mean the facility is unavailable.

Accessibility information
Boat storage
Launching facilities
Bar or restaurant

Include the relevant questions in your enquiry and ask for the current arrangement for your boat, dates and access needs.

Membership and visiting requirements

Use Frankston as the starting point for your travel check. Confirm the actual meeting point for your intended activity; it may differ from the club’s postal address. Include preparation and pack-up when comparing the journey with other clubs.

YouSail records the boat or club category as Yacht Club (mixed). Ask which are currently active on the day you can attend, whether there is a suitable learner or crew pathway, and what equipment you would need.

Use the first-enquiry template to get a clear reply, then take the visit scorecard to compare boat access, the calendar and the complete joining arrangement.

Planning a visit to Frankston Yacht Club

How do I arrange a first visit to Frankston Yacht Club?

Contact Frankston Yacht Club through its current official contact details and describe your experience, dates and intended activity. Ask for the meeting point, equipment arrangements and the next suitable session in Frankston, VIC. A directory listing does not confirm a booking.

Are beginner lessons and boat access confirmed at Frankston Yacht Club?

The YouSail record describes junior learning as: Available. Confirm the current intake, age requirements and equipment directly. Adult lessons and general club-boat access are separate questions.

Other clubs to compare in VIC

Explore alternatives in the same state. Check travel times and current activities with each club.