Wander down to the Goolwa Wharf Precinct on a balmy summer’s night and you will spot more than 30 boats involving 100 crew catching a sniff of a breeze and sailing into the sunset. This is Goolwa at its finest, carloads of families lined up along the bank; a magnificent sight.
The competitors are from the Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club, which remarkably according to records, existed in 1854 making it Australia’s oldest yacht club. That’s 12 years before Wills and Harrison set down the first rules for Australian football. It’s 14 years older than the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club which held the first Wimbledon Championship in 1877, the same year of the first-ever Test cricket match between Australia and England.
Today the GRYC presents Australia’s biggest freshwater race in Australia with up to 200 competitors fiercely changing sail and tact along 40km from Milang. It is the Marina Hindmarsh Island Milang-Goolwa Freshwater Classic, a feature of the Goolwa Regatta Week from January 14-22.
There are more than 100 volunteers putting this event together led by an incredibly-devoted committee of 10 including Lyn Roberts, who last June was appointed as commodore, which was fitting acknowledgement for her exemplary contribution to the club.
Adding to the significant changes is the new appointment as club manager Jay Leech, who has a wine industry background in McLaren Vale, plus the start of $275,000 extensions to the club – 7m x 10m – in late February.
Yet, for all of this amazing background and continued history in the making, and its reputation of conducting one of the great freshwater racing seasons with about 70 events over 12 months, the Goolwa Regatta Yacht Club on Barrage Road is far from being an elitist club as some people may assume. It is as welcoming as a fresh breeze to Edith and Esther, two of the original wooden boats in the inaugural Freshwater Classic of 1966 and ready to race again.
As Lyn wrote in a message for the event as commodore: “The race is truly iconic, and thousands of people have their own unique stories to tell. This is a special part of the world, and we love introducing people to its wonderful features.”
Making it even more heart-warming is the club’s highly-acclaimed Sailability program since 2002 for people with an intellectual and/or physical disability. It is the biggest Sailability program in SA, and Lyn has worked on it for 12 years – before she moved from Lobethal to Goolwa.
However, Lyn doesn’t consider her contribution to Sailability as an achievement. “I see it as an opportunity to help people who really don’t have what we have,” she said.
“I am just one of many within the club who have contributed to this program, and I guess we all get a lot more out of it than we put into it.
“We recently had a Christmas party for Sailability people and their carers, and we had 80 for lunch. Some were visitors, but that is a big testiment to what the program is like.”
Lyn, with more than 30 years in teaching finishing as head of middle school at Encounter College in 2013, believes this inclusive atmosphere at the GRYC was reinforced during the 2008-09 drought when sailing was near impossible. Her husband Graham, affectionately known as Robbo, was commodore at the time, followed by Keith Parkes, and together they focused heavily on the social side of the club as a positive alternative.
“We lost a lot of boats during the drought, and not all came back,” Lyn said. “To now see the twilight racing as big as it is and to have the marina full again is satisfying.
“I never see it as me. It is the club; we pitch in and just make things work. It is not just about the Marina Hindmarsh Island Milang-Goolwa Freshwater Classic or our Sailability program, but every event for all of our members.”
Lyn said she was passionate about the club because she followed Robbo who had his sailing interest. He stepped down but they both kept working.