Inland & ICW · Merritt Island
Melges Performance Sailboats' teaching and regatta base in Kelly Park East on the Banana River, Merritt Island. Spark Sailing Academy for ages 7 to 12, adult learn-to-sail weekends, private lessons on Melges 14s, 15s and 19s, and MC Scow, Melges 15 and 19 winter series.
First stop of the MC Scow winter series on the Banana River, hosted by the center.
Tune-up weekend for the Melges 19 fleet ahead of the December national championship.
Opening weekend of the Melges 15 winter series on the Banana River.
Melges 19 National Championship
The Melges 19 class nationals, doubling as the first stop of the class's winter series at the center.
North American Sailing Series stop for the Melges 24 fleet, sailed from the center and co-hosted with Port Canaveral Yacht Club.
New Year's weekend stop of the Melges 15 winter series on the Banana River.
Second stop of the MC Scow winter series at the center.
Third stop of the Melges 15 winter series on the Banana River.
Second stop of the Melges 19 winter series at the center.
The Melges 15 midwinter championship, closing the class's winter series on the Banana River.
The Melges 19 midwinter championship, closing the class's winter series at the center.
Ten-week youth program for ages 7 to 12 on the Melges Spark, covering rigging, boat handling, seamanship and an introduction to racing.
For adults with little or no experience, sailed on the Melges 15 and 19. No certificate; the course ends with a route into the center's clinics, rentals and club boats.
Ages 7 to 12 on the Melges Spark, with paddling and Indian River Lagoon exploration. The first camp ran in summer 2026.
Melges is the Wisconsin builder of the scows and sportboats, and this is its Florida base: a sailing center run by Melges Performance Sailboats inside Kelly Park East, a five-acre Brevard County park on the west bank of the Banana River in Merritt Island. Sailing World and the company’s own release reported it opening in October 2024, with company president Andy Burdick behind it. The center describes the site as a long-established windsurfing spot with flat water, little current and steady wind, which is also a fair description of good dinghy-teaching water; the Banana River here is a wide, shallow lagoon with the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pads on the horizon to the north.
The teaching runs on the company’s own boats. Children start on the Melges Spark, a small stable trainer, in the Spark Sailing Academy: a ten-week Thursday afternoon program for ages 7 to 12, and a summer camp that ran for the first time in 2026, with some campers finishing the week under an asymmetric spinnaker on a Melges 15. Adults get a weekend academy, one classroom evening and two days on the water on the 15 and the three-person Melges 19, and private lessons of two to three hours on the 14, 15 or 19 that range from a first sail to spinnaker handling before a regatta. There is no certification at the end of any of it; the pathway the center offers is into its own clinics, club boats and regattas.
Those regattas are the center’s other half. From November to April it hosts winter series for the MC Scow, the Melges 15 and the Melges 19, including the Melges 19 national championship in December and both classes’ midwinters, and it shares the Melges 24 Space Coast Cup in December with Port Canaveral Yacht Club. Melges 15s can be chartered for the series, and a Wednesday night series is announced for fall 2026.
Membership is public, with levels for individuals, families and juniors and a discount for Brevard County residents: it buys access to the club Melges 15s by reservation, unlimited kayak and paddleboard use, and rental of the 14s and 15s, and kayaks and boards rent to anyone. The center is open year-round except major holidays and the big regatta weekends, and it sits, by its own measure, 37 minutes from Orlando’s airport.
Inland & ICW · Merritt Island
Space Coast ASA school on the Indian River / ICW, covering Basic Keelboat through Coastal Navigation alongside day-sail and sunset charters out of Harbortown Marina.
Inland & ICW · Orlando
Orlando's ASA venue, a full-service marina teaching Basic Keelboat on spring-fed Lake Fairview aboard Com-Pac keelboats. Fifteen-hour courses spread over several sessions, usually two to three weeks, in groups of up to four or private.