Bring on the 76! How more Gold Coast boat races came to be
by Boat Gold Coast Team November 14, 2015From six races a year in 2007, to 76 races this year, sailing races have become more popular and have grown bigger and better on the Gold Coast through the Southport Yacht Club. Ray McMahon reminisces how these races came to be.
Picture this headline:
NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH!
GOLD COAST BOAT WINS ITS DIVISION AT AIRLIE BEACH RACE WEEK!
Gold Coast boats and particularly Southport Yacht Club (SYC) boats are going through an unprecedented period of great results on the big-boat racing calendar. But we did not really get the big boat results. Until now.
Let us go back to a universe far away (well, it seems like that!) when big-boat sailing was a little small here on the Gold Coast.
The past: Six races a year
Having done several Sydney-Gold Coast races every July, I arrive at the SYC and enjoy the fantastic hospitality the club extends to its visiting sailors. The place rocks and I decide that the Gold Coast is a great place to move to and continue my sailing. I move to the Gold Coast at the end of 2005 and quickly run down to the club to see when the next race was.
The lovely lady at reception politely directs me to Hollywell where the sailing squadron is. That is strange, I say to myself. Here is this lovely big clubhouse with a magnificent marina attached, and I am off to a place called Hollywell. Anyway, it is only around the corner from where I live so it all sounds very encouraging. Upon arrival, I think: Ah ha! I now know why the juniors have been so successful. This sailing squadron at Hollywell is fantastic and a great breeding ground for young sailors. But where are all the big boats?
My investigations showed there was only about six big-boat races a year. So, here is this beautiful big clubhouse at Main Beach, lots of boats on the marina, and they only do six races a year!
KBG formed
Fortunately, at the time there were a few other people thinking the same thing. So the KBG was formed (no, not an international intelligence unit that is the KGB). We were to be known as the Keel Boat Group, or KBG.
The KBG used SYC Main Beach as their headquarters with their total focus being on big-boat racing on the Gold Coast. On a very pleasant spring afternoon in 2007, our first twilight race (the beginning of the Thursday Twilight sailing race program) hits the waters with a massive five keel boats participating. We are excited! We have five boats that want to come out and race on a Thursday afternoon, and then come back into the Club afterwards with four of them making wonderful excuses why they did not win. For us—a few guys dedicated to big-boat racing out of one of the nicest yacht clubs in the country—this was yacht racing!
So we complete our Thursday twilight series, having done eight races and managing at times, seven boats. After a few years, we build a fun series based on primarily having fun on big boats, and occasionally trying to win a darn race. Wow! We suddenly have more twilight races in a season than the Club had for the whole year for its offshore fleet of big boats. And we had a sponsor!
The timing is now right to come under the banner of the Southport Yacht Club and wave goodbye to our KBG. The move is a good one, as this gives us the resources of the Club, which can only enhance our series.
So they cried, “We want more races!”
We take good look at the offshore racing calendar and looked at ways of doing more races and introducing more people to big-boat racing. Our work is done! We have brought big-boat racing to the fabulous SYC Main Beach Clubhouse. Or so we thought! More and more people approached us, saying, “We have a boat and want to go racing,“ or “I want to learn how to sail on a big boat.” More enquiries came in.
Currently, as we are about to commence our 2015/2016 sailing season, we have 42 Thursday Twilight races and 34 offshore races scheduled for keel boats racing out of SYC Main Beach Clubhouse. In a short eight-year period, we have gone from six races a year to 76 races planned for this year, plus a massive offshore regatta in January 2016 that will bring boats from all over the East Coast.
Oh, but what about the boats? Well, from a five-boat start that consisted of mainly cruising yachts eight years ago, this year we had 35 keel boats that competed over the last 12 months, and more than 20 of them competed in every series. We now have three divisions for big boats: multihull, cruising and serious racer. And we are building all the time. We have new-to-boating owners come and join us. We also have existing boat owners upgrade their boats. The most pleasing result is we have people who have joined us as crew and now owning their own boats.
Eight years ago we had one to two boats that wanted to fly the SYC flag at big events around the nation. Now, I am getting asked more and more, “How do I get involved in more racing?
Winning for the Gold Coast
Recently, one of our local boats won its division at the Airlie Beach Race Week regatta with two other local boats running second and third in their divisions. We had a boat run second in its division in the prestigious Sydney-Gold Coast race. We had a local boat win the State Sports Boats title. We had five boats competing at the recent (and massive) Hamilton Island Race Week. Although they were in the middle of their respective divisions, they competed hard and mixed in with the best in their divisions.
While all of this big boat success has been going on, the Hollywell Sailing Squadron has still been doing great things, boasting four current World Champions! The junior sailing numbers are up massively, and now they are staying in the sport because they have opportunities to progress onto big boats if they wish.
It has been an amazing eight years! I am extremely proud to have been a part of it. From very humble beginnings we now have a Keel Boat race series that many clubs would envy. I am sure that in another eight years, I will be writing about Gold Coast boats WINNING major events around the country.
