Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club

Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club (SSCBC) sails off the beach at Sorrento, near the entrance to Port Phillip, and is home to the largest fleet of traditional Couta boats in Australia. It is a busy, family-oriented club that pairs the heritage of gaff-rigged wooden boats with contemporary off-the-beach dinghy, catamaran and keelboat sailing, and one of Victoria's largest learn-to-sail centres.

The club

SSCBC is based at 3154 Point Nepean Road on the Sorrento foreshore, at the southern end of the Mornington Peninsula. Unlike the marina-based squadrons further up the bay, Sorrento is fundamentally an off-the-beach club: boats are launched from the sand and the club sits directly on the water it sails.

The club supports a genuinely broad membership. There are large fleets of off-the-beach dinghies and catamarans, a keelboat contingent, and the centrepiece Couta boat fleet — the biggest of its kind in the country. Sailboards and modern junior classes such as the O'pen Skiff also sail here, and the club's sailing centre runs coaching and learn-to-sail programs for ages from about five through to adults. That mix makes it a useful entry point for anyone getting started; our beginner's guide to sailing in Australia covers how club membership and learn-to-sail programs typically work.

The Couta boat itself is what sets Sorrento apart. Couta boats are traditional gaff-rigged fishing craft, originally worked out of Port Phillip and along the Bass Strait coast to catch barracouta — hence the name. Many of the boats racing at Sorrento today are restored originals, some dating to the early 1900s, sailing on the same water alongside newer builds constructed to the class rules. The nearby Wooden Boatshop at Sorrento has been central to keeping the type alive, and the concentration of boats here has made the club the class's spiritual home.

History

The club as it exists today is the product of a merger. Sorrento has a sailing lineage on this beach reaching back to the 1940s through the Sorrento Sailing Club. The Couta Boat Club (CBC) was formed separately in the early 1980s by a group of enthusiasts intent on preserving and racing the traditional boats.

The two organisations began sharing facilities in the late 1990s under a memorandum of understanding, and the success of that arrangement led to a formal union in 2001, creating the Sorrento Sailing Couta Boat Club. The combined club brought together an established off-the-beach and keelboat membership with the growing Couta boat fleet, and it has since expanded its clubhouse, sailing centre and racing calendar considerably.

Where it sails

Sorrento sits on the southern shore of Port Phillip, close to the bay's narrow entrance at The Heads. This is a distinctive corner of the bay. It is more exposed to the swell and tidal influence that funnel through the entrance than the sheltered northern beaches, and it enjoys reliable sea breezes over water that is often relatively flat inshore — conditions the club describes as well suited to dinghies, boards and off-the-beach boats.

Port Phillip is a large, shallow bay, and conditions vary a great deal between the entrance and the top of the bay off Melbourne. For a fuller picture of the wind patterns, tides and geography that shape racing here, see our guide to sailing in Melbourne and Port Phillip. The southern Peninsula clubs share a stretch of water and a racing scene; nearby Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron is just along the coast, while Sandringham Yacht Club is one of the larger keelboat clubs further north on the bay.

Racing

SSCBC runs an active racing calendar across most weekends from spring through to the middle of the year, spanning its Couta boat, off-the-beach and keelboat fleets. Alongside regular club series and aggregate racing, it hosts a series of trophy events and has a strong record of running larger regattas — its sizeable, well-drilled volunteer base has supported national and international events in recent years.

The Portsea Cup is the pinnacle event of the Couta boat season. A large fleet contests it on the water directly in front of the Portsea Pier, a short distance west of the club, and it draws boats from across the class. The Sorrento Cup is another long-standing fixture on the calendar, and the club has hosted Couta boat national championships. For anyone who wants to watch or follow the racing, the club's website at sscbc.com.au publishes the sailing calendar, notices of race and results, and a summer regatta with a full fleet of restored wooden Couta boats on Port Phillip is a genuinely distinctive sight.