Our Story

The Australia Day Regatta is the oldest continuously conducted annual sailing regatta in the world and has been conducted each year since 1837. From its beginnings, the regatta has been about equality and opportunity. It is not one event - but a plethora of races and events ranging from offshore racing to beach launched dinghies and radio controlled yachts at clubs across the harbour and up and down the NSW Coast.

It is an opportunity for us to demonstrate to all Australians – that sailing is a sport for people of all ages and abilities – a sport where anyone from any walk of life can get involved.

Australia Day, 26 January 2024 will be a notable milestone in the history of our nation, marking 188 years since Australians began celebrating our National Day in a unique and most appropriate way – by competing in sailing events , formal and informal, across the State. A celebration of Australia - past and present.

Beginnings

Only 49 years after the arrival of the First Fleet, a group of citizens of Sydney decided to celebrate the anniversary of that historic day by staging a regatta, originally called the Anniversary Regatta, now the Australia Day Regatta.

The Australia Day Regatta has been held every year since 1837 – in peace and war – an extraordinary achievement in yachting and aquatic sports.

The inaugural Anniversary Regatta was held on 26 January 1837 and was duly reported in the Sydney Herald and in the Monitor of the next day. The program comprised two yacht races, one race for whaleboats, another for gigs and a rowing race for waterman’s skiffs.   Rowing events continued to be part of the Regatta for more than a century but today there are only races for sailing craft.

The ‘Sydney Herald’ report states:  “The event went off with great spirit. The day was remarkably fine and there were crowds of people on the points of land. The steam packet Australian was crowded with people, who kept up dancing nearly the whole of the time. The Hobart Town packet Francis Feeling, with a large party of ladies and a band, intended to sail about during the Regatta, but she ran on a point near Milson’s early in the morning and stopped there all day.”

In the early days of the Regatta merchant ships, originally sail and then steam, and luxury passenger liners were the Flagships, among them the liner Mongolia which was later torpedoed during World War I.  During both World Wars the Regatta maintained its continuity, but with smaller fleets and a Sydney ferry as the Flagship one year.

Many famous yachts and yachtsmen have taken part in the Australia Day Regatta over the past 170 years.  One such yacht was James Milson Jr’s twelve-tonner Friendship, which won many Anniversary Day Regattas between 1840 and 1848.

In 1888, 100 years after the First Fleet arrived, the biggest yachts in Sydney raced for The One Hundred Years Challenge Cup, a long race that took the fleet offshore to Long Reef and Long Bay before returning to the Harbour.  A.G. Milson’s Era won the Cup and again the following year to take the trophy outright.

The 100th Australia Day Regatta was not held on the 26 January, that being a Sunday, but on Monday, 27 January 1937, with the Orient Line steamer Ormonde as the Flagship.  The program of 29 races was described by The Australian Boating Annual as “consisting of races for sailing men, rowing men and motor boat enthusiasts, all engaged in clean healthy sport, as befits the young Australian” continuing on to editorialise…”

“Could there be a more appropriate manner of celebrating the event that took place on that bright day in January 1788 within a short distance of the Flagship’s anchorage?  Could there be a better way of celebrating the birthday of Australia?”

In 2006 the Australia Day Regatta Management Committee struck a new medallion featuring Friendship, which is presented to the winners and place-getters in all Australia Day Regatta races on Sydney Harbour and other waterways.

In recent years the traditional regatta on Sydney Harbour has been expanded to waters throughout New South Wales with many clubs conducting regattas on the Parramatta and Lane Cove Rivers, on Botany Bay, Pittwater, Lake Macquarie, Brisbane Waters, Lake Illawarra and Port Hacking as well as inland dams and lakes under the auspices of the Australia Day Regatta Inc.

With the ongoing voluntary contribution by members of the Advisory Council and the Management Committee, supported by many yacht clubs and yacht owners and a generous principal sponsor in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Commonwealth Private Bank, the future of the Australia Day Regatta looks assured..