Many motives at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week

by Lisa Ratcliff on 25 Aug 2017 Among the women yachties at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week there are many motives for being involved in the sport.

West Australian April Jorgensen, skipper of the Fareast 28 Calibre Racing, and her partner Jayson Oates were drawn to sailing as a way of keeping April’s dad Walter involved in his favourite pastime.

Motivation to re-form an all-women crew on Mista Gybe, the Jenneau 49 out of Airlie Beach, for their second Race Week came from the success of year one.

Aboard the floating piece of history from the New York Yacht Club, Matt Brooks’ 1930-launched S&S 52 Dorade, the latest chapter for professional navigator Adrienne Cahalan is charting the best course for the 16.5 tonne beauty - a very different scenario to the many times she’s navigated the Oatley family’s 100-footer Wild Oats XI around the track.

Dorade is second overall in the IRC Passage division 2 results on the penultimate day of the annual series.

Jorgensen is one of a small number of women skippers at the 34th Audi Hamilton Island Race Week. She came to the sport late, as a way of keeping her dad from retiring and letting go of the hobby and passion that was keeping him younger than his years.

“Dads’ sailed for more than 60 years. About 10 years ago he was considering giving up sailing and I just couldn’t let that happen so we decided we would get a new boat and go halves.”

April and Jayson bought a Davidson 30 with Walter and sailed it on Perth’s Swan River: “We got a good seven years more sailing with my dad,” she said of Walter who’s in his 90s and now retired from sailing.

The pair has chartered the Fareast 28 Calibre Racing from the Queensland distributor and the whole WA crew are enjoying a couple of blowy days to end Race Week. “The boat’s a little bit wet, but that’s all part of the fun,” said Jorgensen.

Calibre Racing is fifth in the Racer/Cruiser division, helped by Friday’s second and fourth on corrected time in the 18-20kt sou’easters.
It used to be the case for Mista Gybe’s crew that the husbands and partners went to Race Week and only a few of the wives had the chance to be on the crew. So, last year the women got together and campaigned one boat and all the men raced on Not A Diamond in a different division.

Mista Gybe’s crew coordinator Linda Gorry says of their first year, “We came eighth or ninth out of 29 boats in our division, so not bad at all.

“We don’t get together in between Race Weeks to train and on the first day this year we had a good 25 plus knots of wind. We handled it ok; we are very cautious. There’s no yelling; everyone is very encouraging and the experienced ones are teaching the girls who haven’t sailed before.

“We love coming to Race Week; the winds can be challenging and it’s just a great place to sail. We just want to encourage more ladies to come and join us. What’s great is a lot of the men come up and ask us how we put the crew together, so they can try and get something similar happening at their club.”

With one race to go Mista Gybe is fifth from 14 entries in Non-Spinnaker division 1.

Saturday August 26 is the final day of Audi Hamilton Island Race Week 2017, when the sun sets on what has been a challenging year for Hamilton Island after being belted by Cyclone Debbie in March and making the decision to rebuild the resort and marina by the deadline of Race Week, five months’ on.