History of the Hout Bay Yacht Club
The Hout Bay Yacht Club was founded in 1978 as a keelboat club. By most club standards we are still in an embryo stage. The battle to get started was not an easy one.
Primarily, Hout Bay is a fishing harbour and it was then a challenge to get sufficient permissions from the relevant authorities. In those days the only mooring facilities offered were 15 trot-moorings - off the beach - but when the wind howled down the Bay, yachts moored on the lee shore had a nasty habit of bumping into Mother Africa.
The beach-sailing section for cats and dinghies formed the core of the club and kept the club alive - until ultimately in 1984 HBYC were allowed to develop a splendid Marina with 114 walk-on moorings in the Hout Bay Harbour itself. This provided much needed sheltered mooring facilities for keelboats. The rest is history, and as a true yacht club - membership increased dramatically.
The Marina was extended in 1989/90 and can now accommodate yachts up to 15,5m (54 ft) in length. A small clubhouse was built in 1978 with extensions built in 1986 to accommodate the growing membership. To move closer to the harbour area & our marina had long been our goal and after 10 years protracted negotiations with the relevant authorities, we secured a long-term lease with permission to build a clubhouse on our boatyard site. With the opening of our new club house in Feb 2002, we bid a sad farewell to our old clubhouse which had seen so many changes throughout the past 23 years. From our new premises our members enjoy splendid views of the bay and of the marina which is only a short walk down the pier.
