Tamar Yacht Club’s Joanna Breen achieved a unique double in the Tasmanian Sailing Awards.
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The 29-year-old was named joint female sailor of the year and and also won the Bennetto Medal as offshore sailor of the year.
Breen skippered her yacht Morning Star into second place in this year’s two-handed Melbourne to Osaka Yacht Race, a distance of 5500 nautical miles from Australia to Japan.
Breen, vice-commodore of Tamar Yacht Club, shared the Bennetto Medal with her crewman, Peter Brooks, who is a member of Port Dalrymple Yacht Club.
Those present at the presentations heard that Breen has an impressive and versatile catalogue of sailing achievements to her name being a ‘Cape Horner’ in a cruise to the Antarctic, a Sydney-Hobart race division winning navigator and a highly regarded crew/helmsperson in the high performance SB20 sports boat class on Hobart’s River Derwent.
Breen shared the female sailor of the year award with Jasmin Galbraith and Chloe Fisher.
The Sandy Bay Sailing Club members won the bronze medal at the 2017 youth worlds in the 29er girls’ class.
The young women, who also won the outstanding youth achievement award, have since moved into the Olympic women’s class skiff, the 29erFX.
Fisher originally hails from Launceston and began her sailing at Tamar Yacht Club before moving south.
The Tasmanian Sailing Awards were announced at the Derwent Sailing Squadron on Saturday evening.
A total of 43 individual and crew/team nominations had been received for the 11 annual awards.
The Tasmanian male sailor of the year saw six finalists, the winner being Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania member Michael Cooper, who skippered Export Roo into a close second in the 2017 SB20 world championships at the sailing mecca of Cowes, on the Isle of Wight in Southern England.
Disabled sailor of the year is Wynyard Yacht Club’s Chris Symonds, who was a silver medallist in the Hansa 303 dinghy class at the 2017 Para World Sailing Championship.
Among the four recipients of the volunteer of the year were Riverside’s round-the-world sailor Ken Gourlay, who was organiser of the Tamar Yacht Club’s Tasmanian Boat and Caravan Show, and Wynyard Yacht Club’s Sailability volunteer group.
Port Dalrymple Yacht Club at Beauty Point was named club of the year while Mike Darby completed a successful night for Wynyard Sailing Club by sharing the instructor of the year award.
