Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
The past two months have seen saturation coverage of the 1971 Cape to Rio Race, and little else. That was with good reason as it was such an iconic event which elevated the status of offshore sailing in our country.
A class that I have given little coverage to in this forum has been the Hobie Class, and this through no malice or prejudice. It is a class which has produced multiple South African World Champions over many years, and is a class in which our sailors are always a threat when they compete internationally.
It is also rare that we as a country host World Championships, so when we do the interest in a class skyrockets, as does local participation. So it did not really come as a surprise that a local team won the event. They were the pairing of Sean Ferry & Michele Le Sueur who won the 2005 Worlds off Port Elizabeth, with two other South African teams in the top ten. For Ferry this was his third World Hobie title.
Belinda Hayward and Kim Wilkinson-Davies were runners-up in the Womans division, Blaine & Roxanne Dodds winners in the Masters. All great performances by great sailors.
So without further ado, here is the report that was published in SAILING Mag, plus additional unpublished pics which I managed to unearth from the archives. Sadly in the days of printed magazine space was always at a premium so one was not always at liberty to use a big selection of pics. So revel in all these!
Enjoy them all – and there will be more Hobie coverage in the future, so follow the Blog at: www.sailing.co.za
READ THE SAILING MAG REPORT HERE: 2005 12 – Sailing Mag – Hobie Worlds
