Land Sailing on a Dry Lake Bed: The Strange History of the Lake Eyre Yacht Club
This is one of those facts I love dropping on a tour because it genuinely catches people off guard: there is a Lake Eyre Yacht Club. Founded decades ago by a group who saw the vast, flat, wind-exposed salt surface of the dry lake bed and thought — quite reasonably, in an eccentric Australian way — that it would make an excellent place to sail.
Land yachts, essentially sailing rigs mounted on wheels or skis instead of a hull, could reach genuinely high speeds skimming across the hard, flat salt crust when conditions were dry. For a stretch of time, the club held informal meets out on the lake, and it became a minor but well-documented curiosity in Australian outback lore.
Where things stand today
- Traditional owners have asked that recreational sailing on the lake bed be respected as culturally sensitive ground
- Access to parts of the lake is managed more carefully now than it was decades ago
- The history itself remains a great story and a reminder of how creatively people have engaged with this landscape
- Our tours focus on viewing and photographing the lake respectfully, not recreating the old land-sailing runs
I still think it’s worth knowing the history, even if the practice has moved on — it says something about how this landscape has always attracted people looking to do something a bit unusual with a very unusual place.
