Wynyard Yacht Club wins Club of the Year award

Wynyard Yacht Club became the winner of yet another award. It became the joint winner of “Club of the Year Award along with Sandy Bay Club.

The award was given at the 2014 Tasmanian Yachting Awards that took place on Sunday 23d November at Hobart. One month before, Yachting Australia gave the club “Australian Club of the Year” award and a week after that the club became the winner at Medibank Active Tasmania Awards.

Commodore of the Wynyard Yacht Club, Neal Rodwell said that to him, winning the award felt like winning the trifecta. He considers the award o be a reward for their efforts. He said that winning the award was never a target for them but they do have certain accomplishments and he is really happy to get a reward for that.

Chris Symonds, the secretary of the Wynyard Club was also present with Rodwell at the awards. Greg Rowlings, the executive officer of ‘Yachting Australia’ wonderfully summarized the Yacht Club’s resurgence in the last 12 months.  He gave a synopsis of how a small club managed to promote the sport among children by contacting Local Authorities, Sporting Clubs and Schools.

Rodwell said that some years earlier they were on the verge of closing the club down. He also said that other small clubs are still facing the problems they had to face and thus they realized that the only way to ensure survival of their club was to partner with other clubs and contacting other people of the Yachting fraternity. Rodwell said that this strategy helped the club get back on its feet and he further added that yachting clubs nowadays have to engage in other water related activities along with racing.

Amelia Catt won the best female sailor of the year of the year award and Andrew Hunn won the best male sailor of the year award.