South Carolina Yacht Club, Hilton Head

The South Carolina Yacht Club is a private club inside the gated Windmill Harbour community, in a 13,000-square-foot clubhouse on the edge of the harbour. It opened on July 1, 1989, with a black-tie party for 700 guests, and it was founded by JR Richardson, who developed Windmill Harbour. People who live in the community sometimes call it the Windmill Harbour yacht club; it is the same place, and the association describes it as the community’s social centre.

It is a members’ club, not a restaurant or a marina you can book. Its dining rooms, pool, courts and gym are for members and their guests, and the slips outside belong to the separate Windmill Harbour Marina.

Membership at the South Carolina Yacht Club

Joining is a choice, not a condition of living here. Windmill Harbour’s property owners pay the association’s fees whether or not they belong to the club, and club membership isn’t part of them. You don’t need a boat or a slip to join, and plenty of members come from elsewhere on the island and the Lowcountry. The reverse holds too: owning or renting a slip in the marina doesn’t make you a member, though the club usually offers new slip owners and renters a trial membership.

There are several kinds of membership, and the club doesn’t publish its dues. Its membership director arranges tours of the club on weekday appointments; call (843) 681-7292 to ask.

Dining at the Club

The club has two dining rooms. The Catesby Room is the formal one, named for the 18th-century naturalist Mark Catesby, whose fish illustrations hang on its walls, and it looks over the marina. The Bluefish Room is the casual one, with a view of the Intracoastal Waterway and a ceiling hung with burgees members have brought back from yacht clubs around the world. There is a deck over the harbour, a wine cellar for small dinners, lunch and dinner most of the week, a Sunday brunch and a pool bar in season. All of it is for members and their guests.

Sailing, Racing and Cruising

Sailing is the heart of the club. A fleet of Harbor 20 one-design keelboats races on Wednesday afternoons all year, and the club keeps a few boats members can reserve for it. There is PHRF racing for bigger boats, a Women on the Water program that teaches women to handle small sailboats, lessons for all levels, and a Cruise Fleet of power and sail boaters that plans a trip a month to places like Beaufort, Charleston and St. Simons Island.

For children there is a junior sailing program, and the club hosts the Hilton Head Island High School Sailing League, an eight-week season of practices and regattas for students in grades 7 to 12 from public and private schools on and around the island.

Tennis, Pickleball, Pool and Fitness

The club’s sports centre has seven Har-Tru clay courts, one of them a stadium court used for exhibitions, with USTA league teams, clinics, social mixers and a summer camp for children aged 7 to 14, and pickleball alongside. There is a 25-metre lap pool with a children’s pool beside it, a fitness room open around the clock, and locker rooms with saunas. For courts you can book without a membership, see our Hilton Head tennis guide.

South Carolina Yacht Club or Harbour Town Yacht Club?

They are different clubs at opposite ends of the island. The South Carolina Yacht Club is here, on the north end at Windmill Harbour. The Harbour Town Yacht Club is a private club on the yacht basin in Sea Pines, by the lighthouse.

Visiting as a Guest

Windmill Harbour is gated, and the gate admits a club member’s guest only when the member has called the pass in with security. Boaters are the other way in: members of yacht clubs with reciprocal privileges who tie up at the marina can ask the club for a guest membership to eat there. The club also hosts weddings, rehearsal dinners and private parties in its rooms, booked through its catering staff.