History

“You are not getting them young enough - you have no cradle“, expressed by the late H.R. (Dutchy) Miller at a regatta in Bowen QLD in 1950. And so the search for a sailing dinghy for young sailors began. 

In 1953 at the North Queensland Yachting Association’s annual conference at the Bowen QLD Easter Regatta it was moved on behalf of the Port Denison Sailing Club (PDSC) to adopt the Sabot class for North Queensland. 

Later that year, the first Sabot — ”Billy Dee”, skippered by David Steen and crew Phillip Kirk — was on the PDSC start line in Bowen.  ”Goofy”, “Tom Thumb”, “Little Toot” and “Tonizone” soon followed and a new generation of young sailors was on the water.  They were all 2-Ups, to bolster the number of sailors involved. By 1955, there were 12 Sabots from Bowen and Mackay at the Townsville Easter Regatta.  Cairns and Townsille sailors soon followed.

When in Brisbane in 1959, Claude Darwen of PDSC found there was a similar need for a dinghy to suit young sailors and urged clubs to introduce the Sabot.  Sandgate Skiff Club, through the efforts of Bill Tetzloff, built six Sabots.

Sabot sailing peaked in North Queensland with 88 boats on the start line in Townsville in 1966.  Today, Queensland is represented by 2 Sabot Associations:  NQSA caters to boats from Mackay northward, and SQSA to boats from Keppel Bay southward. 

The above history is extracted from the ”The Port Denison Sailing Club Story” by Claude Darwen, and was the impetus to start documenting the history of Sabot sailing in Queensland.  The South Queensland Sabot Association welcomes input from clubs throughout Queensland so the rich history of Sabots in Queensland can be shared with current, and future, Sabot sailors.