Jervis Bay Sailing Club

About Jervis Bay Sailing Club

Jervis Bay Sailing Club is a community sailing club based at Callala Bay, NSW that runs club racing, regattas and a learn-to-sail program. The club operates a mixed dinghy fleet (examples listed: PJ, MJ, Laser, Heron), runs organised race series and major events, and provides on-water support with club RIBs. The club is an accredited Discover Sailing Centre and advertises sail training, race officer resources and powerboat/operator courses.

The club is associated with the Shoalhaven sailing area. Directory classification: Sailing Club. Commonly listed classes or sailing focus include Dinghies. Current sailing-directory information indicates junior or learn-to-sail activity. It appears on Australian Sailing's 2026-27 affiliation update in Band 22. Public contact information is available via phone, website.

Training and sailing programs

What sets this club apart is the conveyor belt it shares with the Callala Junior Sailing School — the very organisation whose graduates the club was created to serve. The school's philosophy is learn-by-doing: minimal classroom theory, a full summer season on the water, and two safety boats shadowing students as they progress from crewing to single-handed sailing, with families encouraged to get involved rather than watch from the shore.

Its training fleet reads like a museum of Australian junior sailing — six Pittwater Juniors and nine Manly Juniors, a Sabot, a Heron, two Lasers, a Flying Ant, a de Havilland Vagabond and a little Swiffie 10. The arrangement has run since the club was founded in 2004 precisely to give the school's graduates somewhere to race.

The handover to club racing is deliberately gentle. School sailors are invited into Jervis Bay Sailing Club races on shortened courses, with early-morning starts timed to catch the lighter winds and rescue boat support standing by — a graduated introduction that turns nervous learners into confident racers without ever throwing them in the deep end. Club members repay the arrangement by participating in the school's volunteer training group, so the instruction pipeline and the racing fleet constantly refresh one another.

For adults and visiting sailors, the pathway is less formal: turn up on a Saturday, take advantage of day-membership arrangements where offered, and learn the trade inside a mixed fleet where every boat is yardsticked into contention. There is no accredited Discover Sailing Centre operation on the books; here, teaching happens through the school, and racing craft is learned on the course.

Club history

The story begins not with the club but with its feeder school. In the early 1990s, a police constable suggested to local sailors that teaching a group of teenagers to sail might keep them out of trouble; the sailors — among them Keith Horne, who crewed aboard SV Tales in Jervis Bay Cruising Yacht Club events — took the hint, and the Callala Junior Sailing School was born. Demand quickly swelled to 30 or 40 youngsters each weekend, and volunteers built the clubhouse at Callala Bay to house the operation. By 2004 it was clear the graduates needed somewhere to keep racing, so Jervis Bay Sailing Club was established to hone those skills and give local sailors a permanent racing venue.

Two decades on, the club has grown into a trusted regatta host. Its volunteers provided the race management team for the Rooster RS Aero 2025 National Championships, earning formal thanks from Australian Sailing, with 80 sailors and officials attending the presentation dinner at Club Callala. The 2021 NSW Laser Master Championships were fought out on its home water — 75 Radial rigs and 62 Standard rigs across six races — and the Spiral class NSW State Championship followed on 22–23 November 2025.

The forward calendar is busier still: the Hobie Cat State Titles in December 2026, the Spiral Nationals in January 2027, and RIB support for the Catamaran Nationals at Vincentia and the International Canoe World Titles in February 2027. Incorporated and based at PO Box 232 Nowra, the club is led by Commodore Geoff Carne, with Secretary/Treasurer Steve Lymbery — an accomplished RL24 sailor whose "Thinga Majig" took the 2009 club championship and second at the 2008 RL24 Nationals — keeping the books.