This Week in Sailing – 25th April 2024
17 Boats from the Gold Coast, Brisbane and Ballina (NSW), competed in the 2014 Hobie 16 Queensland State Titles, held at Southport Yacht Club’s Hollywell Sailing Squadron over the Easter long weekend.
Nine offshore races in total were competed to make the regatta, racing was conducted on Easter Friday Saturday and Sunday with three races each day.
Four Southport Yacht Club boats we included in the fleet, including Kelvin Holdt and Danah Clements on Comfortably Numb, Phil Kellond-Knight and James Kellond-Knight on Geoffrey, Jesse Wales and Marianne Wittenbury on Pink Bits, and Hamish Burns with very young daughter Jessica Burns on Dang It.
The second day saw some drama on the race course with Pink Bits snapping their side stay, this caused the mast to come down leaving them to retire for the rest of the day.
In the overall results for Open Division, Geoffrey was 4th, Dang It 6th, Pink Bits 10th and Comfortably Numb 11th . In the overall results for the Masters Division, Geoffrey was 3rd and for the overall results in the Grand Masters Division, Geoffrey came 1st with seven wins and two seconds.
This year the ‘Rooky’ Trophy was awarded to Jessie Wales for their tired less efforts throughout the championships presented by Peter and Juliet Bates.
Southport Yacht club were ecstatic to hear the great comments that were made by the competitors at this year’s Hobie 16 state championships; ‘The courses were perfect, the support team very attentive on the water and the staff at the club very friendly’, ‘We all enjoyed the series so much and loved the ocean sailing’ and ‘it was the hospitality of the Club and members that made it such a success’. With such a great weekend of racing, Southport Yacht Club’s Hollywell Sailing Squadron have been asked to hold the states again same time next year by the Queensland Hobie Association
A huge thank you must go to our team, including all our Volunteers with a special mention to the tireless efforts of Greg Hempstalk, Paul Hebinger, Ben Downey, Leo Witte, Mal Grey and his team from Sunstate Hobie and our own Mark Dingley who was the Principal Race Officer for the Regatta.
Photo Credit: SYC Sailor Ben Downey from Ben’s Garage Door Services
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