From the President

I know it's the end of February but Happy New Year to all! It is wonderful to welcome everyone back for the remainder of our season.

The Christmas period was exceptionally busy, and I want to congratulate all our sailors who competed at the Nationals in Tasmania and other regattas further afield. Your dedication is inspiring. Much kudos also goes to the parents who supported these campaigns—your commitment makes you champions in your own right.

Training and competition are back in full swing. It is a pleasure to see the harbour buzzing again, particularly our ILCA fleet which is "running hot." Our new coach, Daniel, has made an immediate impact, and the fleet is sailing remarkably well under his guidance. And I know he's settled in well with the Opti crew too.

I have been immensely impressed by our volunteer efforts during Sunday racing. Members are sharing the load effectively—from race duties to the collective effort of washing down boats and cleaning up. This communal spirit is fantastic and it’s what makes HHSC thrive.

Speaking of volunteers, many thanks to Bill Vouden for his tireless maintenance work in the sheds. Additionally, the old start boat has received some serious TLC from Jason Borner and Leonard Thorne. All three have gone way above and beyond for the club. Thank you gentlemen. 

We also have plenty to cheer for on the world stage! SailGP is on this weekend, and we wish HHSC alumnus Sam Newton and his family the very best as he competes with the Bonds Flying Roos. Sam, who learned to sail at HHSC as a kid, and his wife Elizabeth are now part of our Green Fleet community with their daughter Matilda. It is fantastic to see our pathway lead from the HHSC rigging lawn to professional racing. Go Sam!

Our fantastic HHSC Race Team shirt sponsor, the Rotary Club of Hunters Hill, are a great group whose goal is to make meaningful change in local communities by providing services to others, promote high ethical standards, and advance world understanding, good will and peace. As part of their work they have their yearly fund raising dinner coming up in May in support of the Brain Cancer Group. Check out their brochure at the bottom of the newsletter and contact me or your class secretary if you want to go. 

Finally, a massive shout-out to another alumnus, Garth Bickford, who recently completed a grueling 24-hour solo sail in an ILCA 6, raising over $10,000 for the Black Dog Institute. An extraordinary achievement for a great cause. 

Garth Bicks at 7.30am, 24hrs almost complete 📸 Matt Wilkinson

I look forward to seeing you all on the water.

From the Commodore

Whilst sailing at HHSC took a break over the summer holidays, our race fleets were busy in Hobart for ILCA and Optimist Nationals and the 80th Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

ILCA Nationals - 1-8 January 2026 - Royal Hobart Yacht Club

ILCA Nationals was a tough regatta with variable conditions that were often quite shifty and made it difficult to post consistent results. HHSC had 5 representatives and whilst they all represented the club proudly I think most had hoped for a slightly better position on the final leaderboard. Well done to all sailors for surviving a challenging trip away. Special mention to:

• Sylvie Stannage - 8th overall ILCA 6, 5th Australian, 4th Australian female

• Harper Spacey - 3rd female ILCA 4

Optimist Nationals - 1-8 January 2026 - Royal Hobart Yacht Club

A fleet of 10 HHSC Optimist sailors made the trek to Hobart for the 2026 Nationals. All sailors represented the club admirably with special mention to:

• Sijia Deng - 1st female and 12th overall

• Emma Tomkins - 2nd female and 13th overall

• Zac Boyd - 4th Intermediate fleet

 80th Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

Congratulations to:

• Sam Newton  - Master Lock Commanche - Line Honours winner

• Nic Livermore - Veloche - 10th on PHS, 4th in Div 1

• Max Fischer - Koa - retired and returned to Sydney.

Australia Day Regatta

HHSC hosted another successful regatta for the 190th Australia Day regatta. This year we combined our Australia Day regatta with the ILCA Monarch of the River which includes boats from Lane Cove Sailing Club, Greenwich Sailing Club, Greenwich Flying Squadron and Drummoyne Sailing Club.

Unfortunately, strong winds kept a few less experienced sailors on land but, despite 20+ knots of breeze we still had 10 Optis, 12 ILCA 4, 8 ILCA 6 and 3 ILCA 7 sailors braving the conditions.

Congratulations to the following sailors:

• Milton Li - first in Optimists on Handicap

• Sijia Deng - first in Optimists on Scratch and second on Handicap

• Axel Ryves - third in Optimists on Handicap

• Alexander Parker - first ILCA 4 on Scratch and first ILCA on yardstick. Also winner of the Hunters Hill Council award for first on scratch in the fleet with the greatest number of entries.

• Zac Howell - first on scratch in ILCA 6 and second ILCA on yardstick.

• Chase Leibenberg (DSC) - third ILCA on yardstick

• Kerryn Smith (GSC) - first ILCA 7 on scratch

The first placed sailors will receive an invitation from the Australia Day Committee for the Presentation Evening at Town Hall. I have medallions for 2nd and 3rd place winners to be presented at Presentation Night.

Club racing

The HHSC Calendar has been recently updated with training times, racing schedule and upcoming regattas.

Want to know what’s coming up in 2026? It’s all here:HHSC_Season_2025-2026_Calendar.xlsx

Results - Hunters Hill Sailing Club

Learn2Sail

Welcome back to Term 1 Learn2Sail, and welcome to our new members who have joined since our December and January camps. 

Camps

We had a fantastic run of four camps over the summer school holidays! Three of them were fully sold out, a huge thank you to all our coaches who helped make them such a success. Check out some pics from over the holidays. 

Teens and Tweens campers 📸 Conor

Momentum and Pro campers getting some RO practice in 📸 Belle Parker

Rookie camper 📸 Belle Parker

 Speaking of camps, registrations are now open for our April School Holiday Camp, running Monday 13 – Friday 17 April.

Members receive a $115 discount on all camps (excluding Teens & Tweens).

Register via our events pageto secure your spot!

Weekend Classes

We’re back into the swing of things with our weekend Learn2Sail and Teens & Tweens classes. Here’s a snapshot of what our sailors have been up to recently:

Teens & Tweens: Luca in the Zest, Daniel and Max in the Quest sending it downwind 📸 Belle Parker

L2S Rookie sailors practising tacking on the simulator with Coach Nic 📸 Belle Parker

L2S Momentum adventure sailing  📸 Belle Parker

L2S Pro sailor Henry, curious if he should've taken up  the less wind-dependent sport of rowing instead 📸 Belle Parker

Try-Sailing 

Last Saturday morning we hosted a free Women & Girls Try-Sailing event at the club. Heading out in our RS Quests, we welcomed 16 enthusiastic women and girls to experience sailing for the first time.

Despite the lack of breeze, it was a fantastic morning on the water, followed by morning tea at the club. We hope the event inspired some new sailors and, importantly, helped increase female participation in our sport.

A big thank you to Bec, Emma, Sijia, Taylor and Kira for providing such a warm and supportive introduction to sailing and our club.

Women & Girls Try-Sailing event 📸 Belle Parker

 We’ll be hosting our final free Try-Sailing event of the season on Saturday, March 14. If you have friends or family interested in joining us for the new season, be sure to share the registration linkwith them. 

Optimist Fleet

TT WSC  📸 James Hill @mainsheet

 And we are back! After an intense 10 days in Hobart for the National Championship in January,  HHSC Optimist fleet has kicked off the 2026 season at the Traveller’s Trophy regatta hosted by Woollahra Sailing Club last Sunday. It was fantastic to see 18 HHSC sailors competing — 10 Opens, 4 Intermediate, and 4 Green Fleet sailors.

Training and club racing are now back in full swing, and it’s great to see our growing Green Fleet group full of motivated young sailors.

We are also pleased to welcome coach Daniel Kei as the newest addition to our outstanding coaching team: Harper (Green Fleet), Tom (Intermediate), and Matt and Daniel (Opens).

March is shaping up to be a busy month. Four of our Open sailors — Luca, Emma, Sijia, and Tom — will travel to Victoria to compete in the Victorian State Championships from 7–9 March.

On 21–22 March, our Opti fleet will attend the NSW State Championships at Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club , a fantastic event to wrap up the summer season.

TT WSC  📸 James Hill @mainsheet

Stay Connected
Follow all the Opti action on instagram  and on Facebook. Check out the updated NSWIODA Opti website– all regatta dates, photos, useful links, and resources are available there. Stay up to date with everything Opti-related happening in NSW, including the latest news, updates, and regattas via the state group.

Waspz

The demo Waszp is back! Use is managed by Minette via the Whatsapp group. A reminder of the club rules around using the Demo Waszp:

1.⁠ ⁠Let Minette know you're taking the demo Waszp out via the HHSC Waszp WhatsApp group & confirm with Minette when it’s returned plus any damage report. If you break it you repair it.

2.⁠ ⁠⁠Have rib support. From a parent if you’re an Opti sailor.

3.⁠ ⁠⁠Know how to launch & land it, plus have enough people to do that. Minimum 2 youth/adult or 3 Opti sailors in the water.

4.⁠ ⁠⁠if you haven’t been on the Waszp before or don’t know how to rig it, you’ll need to wait for an organised session.

A Word from Our Sponsor

The Rotary Club of Hunters Hill - our community partners

Our generous local sponsors are holding a fantastic charity event…

Newsletter

Have a great photo from recent events? Share it with us via the club’s Photos WhatsApp group

Contributions and feedback for the newsletter are always welcome via: Newsletter HHSC