World titles lures local boaties to Hamilton Island

Brett Shaw doesn’t need to be lured to boating events. He hunts them down.

Just this weekend past, he took his Quintrex 5.6m half-cabin boat over to renowned Hamilton Island for a world class outrigger event to provide on-the-water support for a team from New Zealand who were in a gruelling 42km marathon paddle.

He’s not alone in his passion either with a strong contingent of Proserpine boaties including Shane Spann, and Chris Patrick, and many from Airlie, all motoring across Pioneer Bay to be part of Gatorade’s Battle of the Paddles four-day event.

"This is my fourth year and we love it. Basically our job as the support boat is to follow along with the outrigger team who start with a team of ten, but only six in the canoe to start with. We have the extra four on board and every 12 or so minutes there tactic was to change over two or three of the paddlers," Mr Shaw said.

The Shaw’s team was called Manuz and Jemimaz who came fifth in the women’s open which Mr Shaw says was quite a feat considering they lost two of their crew members two days before
the event.

"There was a mother and daughter component to the team but the daughter had a burst appendix on Friday and she and her mother were flown out on Friday to Mackay … so they had to find two more team members on Saturday … they ran an unbelievable race," he said.

Mr Shaw says his team was hoping to do the race in 3 hrs and 45 minutes and were only ten minutes outside their time. "I take my hat off to them because they did quite well."

While a few things have changed over this keen boatie’s four year involvement with the race, Mr Shaw says the unpredictability of the event has always amazed him.

"The first year I did it, I remember we’re all tuned in to the race control radio station and it came over the two way that there was a large shark eating a turtle near the women’s change over buoy … needless to say we made the decision to move the change over a bit further along the course!"

Mr Shaw was joined on the island by his wife Sue whom the Guardian spotted out along Front Street on Saturday night after they’d enjoyed a big feed of freshly caught crab.