Women of the Lake

Women have been amongst some of Lake Cootharaba Sailing Club’s most active club members and successful sailors for many years.

Fay Otto, Del Bulmer, Fay Larner and Jeanette Roughley were amongst the early pioneers who started racing at the club in the 1950s, crewing and skippering race winning boats.
Fay was the first lady skipper to compete in club races.

Over the 75 years that LCSC has been in existence, they have been followed by a long list of women who have not only enjoyed, and excelled in, the sport that we all love, but have also been very active in the running of the club.

Those pictured below are only a very small number of some of the more recent “Women of the Lake”.

Meet the Women

Petra Berninger

Petra has been a club member, and sailing the lake, for 20 years.  Shown here helming an International 14, with partner Mani looking after the for’ard hand work. The 14 class is a thoroughbred class that had its origins in the late 1800s in the UK but remains a challenging, high performance dinghy due to its development-orientated class rules.

Jane Langley and Jenny Hart

Jane and Jen have teamed up to form a very successful combination in their MG, Cheetah, being awarded the Club Championship trophy for the last two years. Jane has been sailing since she was 11 years old and Jen has recently been bitten by the sailing bug and is a very enthusiastic and keen sailor.

The young women

Juniors have played a pivotal role since the early formation of the club, particularly female sailors.
Elke and Mia Hacker have set a high competitive bar winning a number of trophies both at State and National level.
Rebecca Blades (parents (Arnold & Margaret Blades owned the Local Lakes Motel) sailed in the 1990s and was awarded the Paul Otto memorial trophy.
More recently, Seisia Mair has been an inspiration for all junior sailors. At the age of 13 she was the youngest skipper in the SB20 worlds. She also joined forces with Hana Lena Jenkin to come third in the New Caledonian 29er regatta.
Teshi Collins was recently awarded the Sabot Championship trophy, and she was also the first female in the 2020 Sabot Nationals held in Sydney.
As the juniors, Riley Sinclair, Sarie Lombard, Maia Reynold  and Celine Gernert move up to the senior fleet they are providing some fierce competition, and new recruits Carolyn De Blois, Sally McDonald, Libby Connors and Gemma Olds are showing signs that they may one day step into their shoes!

Wendy Witt

Wendy’s sailing “career” spans about 50 years.
The bug bit in her late teens, sailing a Scow Moth at the Oxley Sailing Club in Brisbane.
In the 1970/80s, she and husband Russell sailed and lived aboard cruising yachts that they owned together, until the accommodation needs of their rapidly expanding family started to stretch the limits of life afloat.
After moving ashore, Russell took up windsurfing and Wendy went back to dinghy sailing, purchasing a Sabre. It was the first of a series of three that she has owned of the class, and sailed continuously for 16 years.

Liz Patchett and Robyn Hewitt

Among the club’s most recent members is Robyn Hewitt who teamed up with Liz Patchett to sail on Sundays at the club. Both had sailed many years ago and have rekindled the sailing flame. The two nurses met at work in Noosaville about a year ago and hit it off. Liz and Robyn have bought an International 420 and called the boat Sora … which is Romanian for “sisters”.

Volunteers

LCSC is run by it’s members on a volunteer basis and over the last 75 years, women have been amongst the most active contributors.
In the early days, it was the “ladies committee” that was instrumental in raising funds for the purchase of equipment and rescue boats for the club.
In more recent times, women have also contributed through everything from running the canteen to manning rescue boats,  being race officers for regattas, and being active members on a number of the club committees.

Ari Matta

Ari shares her love of sailing and racing, particularly on a windsurfer, with husband Tony who has been an active club member for many years.

Elke Hacker

As daughter of club coach Charlie, she was destined to be a sailor.
After learning to sail on Lake Cootharaba, she went on to travel the country and the world  to compete in a variety of regattas.
She won the Minnow National Championships in 1998 at McCrae Yacht Club on Port Philip Bay, and was selected to be part of the Australian Sailing Team competing at the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Team Racing World Championship in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland in 1999.
During the 1999/2000 season she continued sailing senior classes, winning the Junior (under 21 years) National Sharpie Championships at Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron, and in 2009 was placed 3rd Overall at the Sharpie Nationals, Lake Illawarra, NSW.
Elke is now a mother of two and has recently returned to competitive sailing winning the 2020 QLD State championships for Sharpies.

Minyon Avent

Minyon (second from the left) is the current club Treasurer and is also very actively involved with Junior Sailing, including promoting  junior regattas, and sail training for families.

She was fortunate to be exposed to sailing from a very young age, competing as a junior in club races in a Dabchick at her local lake in South Africa. and  moving on to compete at Provincial (State) and National levels in Lasers.

She has sailed both competitively and socially in a number of countries including Botswana (national champion), England, USA and PNG.

Then she discovered Lake Cootharaba with her family, and the rest is history!

Minyon has recently purchased an Aero and is looking forward to some more fun sailing.

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