Airlie Beach Race Week – Mister Magoo’s decisive trailable win

by Di Pearson on 18 Aug 2016 Jason ‘Goggles’ Ruckert and his Mister Magoo crew from Queensland have decisively won the Trailer Boat Nationals, hosted by Airlie Beach Race Week.

Ruckert sailed against 19 others from Queensland, Victoria and NSW and led the field from the first day when his Thompson 7 crew won the first race at the 27th Airlie Beach Race Week hosted by Whitsunday Sailing Club.

“We’ve been racing sports boats for the last six years, but my boat launched in March 1999, so was a trailer sailor before sports boats came into being. We came here in 2004 to do the CBH Nationals and came second with So What,” Ruckert said after claiming the title by nine points from Sophie Lahey’s Still Crazy.

“We’ve come second three times, and finally got the win this year. We’ve been coming to Airlie Beach Race Week since 2004. We’ve spent a bit of money in the beer tent celebrating, but we save up every year.”

Ruckert paid tribute to his tribute to his crew, Chris O’Shannessy, Becky Maloney and David Ward. “I couldn’t have done it without them. They kept me out of trouble. This was Becky’s first foray into trailer sailing and her first sail on Mister Magoo at Race Week, because one of my crew couldn’t make it at the last moment.

“She is the fastest Ranga (redhead) on the race track,” Goggles ended laughing.

“The crew are pretty stoked to win – we’ve been trying for a lot of years. The first time we raced at Nationals was 1995 on a Hartley, then 1999 at Lake Macquarie, then here in 2004.”

Next cab of the rank for Ruckert and Mister Magoo is the St Helena Cup at Manly Yacht Club in Brisbane in early October, where he expects to see up to 100 boats on the racetrack.

However, the day belonged to Sophie Lahey and her crew from Southport, who won today’s race with her Dad Peter’s Blazer 23 to jump over the top of Ray Jones’ Sonata 760 Sports MK1, Katie II, which dropped to third overall.

For their final race, the Trailable yachts sailed a 16 nautical mile islands course taking in Bluff and Grimstone Points and Pioneer Bay. Mister Magoo finished second to Lahey, who said yesterday, “We are getting better and better every day,” as her crew sailed together for the first time at this regatta.

She and her crew of dinghy sailors were thrilled to finish second overall, after arriving here with no expectations, just wanting to give it a go and have some fun.

Twenty of the best trailable boats from Queensland, Victoria and NSW contested the Trailer Boat Nationals at the event dubbed the Tropical Festival of Sails.