Margaret Goddard Honoured as Royal Yacht Club of Victoria’s Club Member of the Year

Marg Goddard at the helm of Twice Five during the Geelong return in 2023

Congratulations to Margaret Goddard on her award this week as one of two Royal Yacht Club of Victoria’s Club Member of the Year Season 2024-25.

Marg is a boat owner, passionate sailor, first-class volunteer, and has many strings to her bow.

At her home club, she is a regular volunteer assisting race management, and as a chaplain is also called upon for the annual “Blessing of the Fleet” ceremony. And when not at her home club, Marg also volunteers for race management and Incident management roles as a member of the ORCV (Ocean Racing Club of Victoria) for their various bay and ocean races. She is also a long time member and on committee of MTYC – Melbourne Trailable Yacht Club.

A lifelong sailor, since her childhood Marg has been fascinated by everything sailing, and has a lifetime of experience “messing around in boats” from early days in dinghies, progressing to trailer sailers and later keelboats, always bringing her prodigious DIY skills to the fore.

With her teaching background, she has mentored many sailors, whether running school sailing camps or encouraging, mentoring and inspiring more women to get out on the water to progress their sailing dreams.

The launch in 2022 of QCYC’s KISS (Keelboat Introduction to Sailing Savvy) training program - for women, by women - saw Marg sign up as a boat owner to provide on water training and mentoring for other women and was soon co-opted to join the KISS Committee. Since then, she has been involved in developing and delivering Safety Workshops including VHF radio and MOB and freelancing as a KISS event photographer when needed.

Most recently, Marg has joined yet another yacht club, Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club (GLYC), penned her Noelex trailer sailer there and represented the ORCV KISS ALIVE program, assisting with delivery of a very successful Safety Workshop day at the GLYC “WOW (Women on Water) Gathering” last month.

Always cool, calm, collected and willing to support, Margaret is a great role model and inspiration for many sailors. Check out the photo of the beaming faces of the women in her KISS 2023 boat team aboard her Northshore 33 “Twice Five” and you can see how everyone aboard is having so much fun.

Congratulations Marg!