CLUB IN FOCUS: Henley Sailing Club

Name and Location of the Club: Henley Sailing Club, West Beach, SA

Establishment date & brief history:

The club was founded in 1911 and remains the oldest off-the-beach sailing club in South Australia. Originally based out of the local council depot, it has been later moved to the “hole in wall” where the current Henley Surf Life Saving Club is located. The club was forced to move once again after it was washed away in a 1948 storm, after that the members purchased the current site and constructed the building at West Beach where it has remained ever since. Traditionally a 14 Foot club with races conducted from the Henley Jetty, the West Beach site has grown into a modern club that welcomes all classes and can host the wider sailing community. The Club celebrated it’s Centenary in 2011.

Commodore: Damian Carey

Membership:

We have total of 70 Members, currently 40% of membership is female and the average age of membership is 41.

Supported classes and types of sailing:

Off the beach sailing including Laser (Radial, Full Rig, 4.7), Mirror, 505, I14, Cherub, International A Class, Arrow Catamaran, National E, O’pen Skiff – we welcome any class and mostly sail on yardstick.

Key club events: 

Club Heat events, we have tried a new format this year each class had a club heat weekend, to ensure we had class champions and lots of boats for each class and volunteers on the water. In conjunction with the Mirror class we have been assisting in hosting Mirror Sailing Camping weekend at Goolwa.

Sailing programs:

We offer, Discover Sailing programs from ‘come and try’ through to ‘Better Racing’ via the Discover Sailing Pathway. We also offer the Power Boat handling and Safety Boat course to assist up skilling our members.

Club achievements:

The club relies on volunteers for all parts of its operations, including the bar, administration and maintenance. Members have commented that they like to sail at the club as they enjoy sailing on Saturdays and like camaraderie and the friendly atmosphere of the club. Most of our members enjoy sailing on Saturdays and having a bit friendly banter.

We have maintained women in leadership roles at the club over recent decades, sailing on a regular basis, and as instructors. 

The Club is unique because:

Our Discover sailing program, has always focused on adults learning to sail.  As our instructors are volunteers this enables us to conduct courses with low student ratios. We also offer follow up sessions after the courses for students to practice their skills, which often results in them buying boats and joining the club. 

We have a number of families, where everyone in the family sails and a number of years ago we introduced an “All Sailing Family” membership.

And of course the beach we sail from, and the sunsets from the balcony.

Member achievements: 

Commodore Damian Carey has won a number of Mirror Australian titles including back to back in 2016-17 (Henley) & 2017-18 (Hobart), and recently finished 4th at the Mirrors worlds in Sydney and 2nd at the same Nationals. Prior to sailing Mirrors, Damian along with Vice Commodore Marcus Cooper finished 2nd at the 2015 Australian 505 Championships and have had a number of 10 top finishes while sailing together over the past 20 years. Marcus joined with Jan Saugman from Denmark for the 2018 Australian 505 Championships in a borrowed boat and finished 2nd having not previously sailed together.  He again teamed up with Jan for the 2019 Worlds in his own boat and finished a credible 14th in a series in which he took home 2 race wins.

Neil How, who had been a long time Cherub sailor changed to sailing A Class Catamaran and was the first foiling A Class in South Australia. Neil has recently sailed at the A Class Worlds at Harvey Bay and finished 26th overall. This is a great achievement (in a fleet of professional sailors) especially as we don’t have ideal “foiling conditions” and Neil regularly travels to Melbourne to sail against other foiling A’s.

This year Andrew Darcey has joined us, Andrew is an accomplished Laser sailor and partner at Leading Edge Physio. Andrew has been the Physiotherapist for the Australian Rowing and Australian Sailing Team.  He is currently sailing a mirror with his son.

Other notable members are Professor Frank Grutzner, who is renowned for his research into Echidnas and Platypus at the University of Adelaide. Frank is originally from Germany and now sails at Henley with his two children.  Professor David Ottaway is also a member, David is a Physic professor at the University of Adelaide who has worked both in Australia and the US (MiT) and returned to sailing with his family at Henley Sailing Club.

Challenges faced by the club:

Only less than 5 years ago we only had 30 members, and no Junior Sailing or Junior members.  We developed a strategic plan and decide to differentiate ourselves from other clubs and focus on families sailing together as there was demand for this and the club had a history of Mirror Sailing. Our Commodore Damian Carey re-introduced the Mirror Class back into the club and the state following an absence of more than a decade. 

We also required Race Officers to due the current age of the race officers, Marcus Cooper our Vice Commodore is currently on the path to become a National Race Officer. As part of this process we have been able to up-skill our members so that we have a pool of people who can help with course boats and Race Officer duties. Marcus is assisting in training Natalie Westover as a race officer.

Latest success:

Our junior sailors and new families who have come to the club, many of us sailed against each other as teenagers or in our twenties and have returned to sailing or the club with our children.

We hosted the O’pen Bic Australian Titles and Mirror Nationals in 2016-17 which was a large undertaking for a club that had not hosted an events of this scale and had a small member base that was under going through a rebuilding phase. The Mirrors had 25 boats and this was a warm up for the O’pen Bic Nationals where had 76 O’pen Bics sailing. As a result of these two events the club now has up to 12 Mirrors sailing in the club heats and has purchased two O’pen Bics and now has a fleet of 6 Bics sailing. Only 3 years ago we only had one Bic and a handful of Mirrors.