The Club
With a history spanning over two decades
WELCOME - bienvenido - benvingut - bienvenu - willkommen - bem vindo - failte - benvenuto - welkom
We warmly welcome visitors to sail with us, as an appetiser and introduction to joining the club. You are welcome to have a trial sail with us before committing to your membership. The cost for that is just €15 per person, which will be discounted from your membership fee when you join. Please contact us in advance to arrange a date for your trial sail.
Santa Irene Club de Vela is based in the port of Garrucha, in the province of Almeria, located between the coastal villages of Vera Playa and Mojacar Playa.
Prospective members should have some prior experience of sailing, preferably dinghies.
We are not licensed to formally instruct new sailors, but we can advise and assist a new member to develop and enhance their dinghy sailing experience, competence and skills.
The club has approx. 30 dinghies of which 5 are owned by the club and the others owned privately, belonging to various classes such as ILCA/Lasers, Wayfarers, Visions, Flying Dutchmans and Snipes, as well as several other individual examples of different classes such as Albacore, Phantom, GP14 etc. We can all race together using an internationally recognised Portsmouth Yardstick dinghy racing handicap system.
Owning a boat is definitely not an essential requirement for new members. However, if you already do have your own dinghy then the Club offers special storage fees for members bringing their own boat to the club Dinghy Park.
Safety Boat Team
We are always in need of new people to join our Safety Boat Team. Being a crew brings free membership and a great time out on the water, we’ll even buy you beers & tapas after your Safety Boat session. Contact us for more information.
Federacion Andaluz de Vela
Santa Irene Club de Vela is a member of FAV, the Andalucia federation of sailing organisations.
The History
With a background of dinghy racing from the 1950s, John Talliss founded Santa Irene Club de Vela in 2002 aiming to bring the sport of dinghy sailing to the youth of Mojacar, where the club was originally based.
However, John’s passion for sailing was in sharing it with others. With this in mind, he set about starting a sailing club by building 2 Optimist dinghies in 2001 and then went on to acquire a further 8 more dinghies over the next year.
The club has now become firmly established in the commercial port of the town of Garrucha, with a very friendly cosmopolitan membership that brings great pleasure to our many dinghy sailing enthusiasts.
The S.I.C.V. Committee
The new 2026 Committee was elected by all Club members at the Annual General Meeting
which was held on Friday 16th January 2026.
President – Peter Loveday
Vice President – Andy Bond
Secretary – Michele Makepeace
Treasurer – Jo Fraser
Safety Boat Roster – Jo Fraser
Maintenance Officer – Austin Brierley
Liaison Officer – Diana Sojo
Property Manager – Richard Goodson
Webmasters – Xavi Braun & Jesus Morote
