News & Events

Whitsunday Sailing Club’s 30th Anniversary Airlie Beach Race Week surpassed expectations – anyone would be hard put to remember better weather at a regatta, accentuated by the variety of winds, courses and the sunny days.

Day 5 of Airlie Beach Race Week Festival of Sailing and conditions during the morning were above and beyond the forecast 15 knots, the wind whipping seas up quickly and crews had to stay on their toes, then winds eased after lunch – another great day in paradise.

Whoever is in charge up there is certainly favouring Whitsunday Sailing Club’s Airlie Beach Race Week, this week, as Race Director Denis Thompson reports, “more trade winds, but lighter than yesterday – probably in the 15 knot range.”

A sports boat limped home under motor after breaking its rudder, while other boats broached in up to 25 knots wind with gusts, their crews finding it difficult to control their rides – all part and parcel of the forecast superb windy conditions that arrived in time for Day 4 of Airlie Beach Race Week Festival of Sailing.

Queenslander Dennis Lehany’s Jim Brown 6 metre trimaran, Billy the Kid, flipped while racing in shifty and gusty 25 knot winds at Whitsunday Sailing Club’s Airlie Beach Race Week Festival of Sailing today.

Another day, at the Whitsunday Sailing Club’s 30th Anniversary Airlie Beach Race Week and the wind gods pulling out all stops with a 22-23 knot south-easterly breeze on order – different again to the previous three days of racing.

Three days of racing at the 30th Anniversary Airlie Beach Race Week, three different types of conditions and today’s was champagne sailing, with light 7-9 knots around the course on Pioneer Bay for the entire fleet.

Airlie Beach Race Week Festival of Sailing has been attracting more and more former and current skiff sailors to the Whitsunday Sailing Club hosted event.

Could be too much of a good thing in one place and after two great and very different days of sailing at Whitsunday Sailing Club’s Airlie Beach Race Week, Race Director, Denis Thompson, was looking at a weak and fading westerly land breeze and keeping competitors ashore while he monitored the situation.