(Airlie Beach, Whitsundays, Australia)- This year marks the 25th running
of the annual Airlie Beach Race Week in the Whitsundays - an event
which has grown each year from humble beginnings, originally conceived
to promote the opening of the very first Hog's Breath Cafe in Australia.Don Algie, had arrived in the Whitsundays aboard his classic 55' sloop Storm in 1987 looking for a site to start his brainchild, Hog's Breath Cafe, after spending four years in Key West, Florida. His first taste of big boat regattas was the Hamilton Island Race Week in Easter of 1988 where Storm performed well enough in Cruising division for Don to look at staging a regatta on the mainland at Airlie Beach.
A
year later, after discussions with the Whitsunday Sailing Club and the
upcoming opening of the first Hog's Breath Cafe in Australia, plans were
put in place to sponsor a major regatta on the mainland. The regatta
was to include a mixture of bay racing around the buoys and long
distance races around the adjacent islands of the area over a period of a
week.The Whitsunday Sailing Club and Don decided to hold the first regatta in the lead up to the famous Great Whitsunday Fun Race in September in 1990. This event was to be called the Hog's Breath Cruising Classic to cater for the influx of coastal cruising yachts which visit the Whitsundays at that time of the year. The rest is history.
The social aspect of Airlie Beach Race Week has always been an attraction with the competitors converging on the Whitsunday Sailing Club beachfront to share their stories and enjoy the hospitality of the locals. The event has many diverse social aspects and the competitors are the ones who pass the word around about the fun of racing in Airlie Beach.
Who is a huge fan of this amazingly fun event, the Australian version of Key West Race Week? None other than Ray Carless and crew on their J/70 JUNIOR! Sailing their 70 for the first time last year, Carless and crew not only had a great time but managed to collect some silverware along the way! This time, with a bit more experience under their belts, they hope to again cash in on some of the fun courses they run over the course of the event! Carless hopes more J/70s join them in the future, after all it’s a quick’n’easy drive with lightweight J/70 up to Airlie Beach from Sydney or Brisbane! Toss it into the drink off the ramp and away you go to more than enough fun-in-the-sun than you can possibly handle in a lifetime! For more Airlie Beach Race Week sailing information
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