Eight female paddlers from Port Douglas joined up with four girls and three men from Hekili (Cairns) to compete at the oldest Outrigger race in Australia - the Hamilton Island Cup.

Running in its 29th year, the five days of racing started with a win in the 250 metre OC2 Sprint for Mia Messinger and Danielle Bellero in the Master Division.

Unlucky in the 16km race, a damaged canoe prevented them from finishing the race, but Monique Johnston made up for this winning silver in the Master Women solo race.

The next day marked the beginning of the OC6 racing. The combination of Lili Jansen, Monique Johnston, Mia Messinger, Ingrid Juchem, Danielle Bellero and Jacky Cooke convincingly won gold in the 500 metres sprint with Brisbane and Mooloolaba second and third.

“Beating these two big clubs was very sweet“ Jansen said.

Fielding two Open Women teams, Jansen, Linda Davis, Karen McClure, Carly Francis, Janelle de Boom and Johnston placed fourth in the 500 and third in the 1000 metre sprint.

The team of Juchem, Kelly King, Kim St.Pierre, Messinger, Chamberlain and Baker (both from Outrigger Australia) made it into the finals of both races.

“We were very happy with the result as we had never paddled together before," Kelly King said. "To make up this team, we had to ring in to paddlers from another club.”

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The sprints were followed by the 16km around the island race. In challenging condition Davis, Bellero, De boom, Francis, Cooke and Mac Clure placed eighth with Jansen, Juchem, Chamberlain, Baker, King and St Pierre place eleventh in a strong international field.

“We had a really bad start," Kim St. Pierre said. "The current pushed us toward the outside of the start line and at one stage the starter Buoy was right on top of me.

"Our other crew was right next to us, and we ended up hindering each other,” she said.
 
In the mixed race the conditions had eased a bit and the combined Port Douglas/Hekili team of Jansen, Ralph Seed, Keith Vis, Messinger Monique and Steve Johnston place third.

The 42km changer over Hamilton Island Cup (doubling up as the National Change over race) was the last race of the weekend. 35 canoes lined up in unusually calm conditions.

After the first change over the team started to overtake crew after crew, including a men’s team from PNG.  Chasing the Master Women Crew of Maloolabe in front of them, they finished strongly, winning a bronze medal in the National Change Over Title category.

“This was the most successful Hamilton Island Regatta ever for Port Douglas,” club president Ingrid Juchem said.

”We had to borrow a new light weight canoe from Hekili (Cairns) to be competitive at this regatta and are desperately looking for sponsors," she said.

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